Promises made, since broken
by planet p
Summary: AU; When you come to the end of your life, is there still something left to live for, for just a little while longer?
1. Chapter 1

**Promises made, since broken** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

1.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing," Lyle replied.

Miss Parker stepped closer. "Writing?" She frowned. It looked like music; though she didn't know who still wrote music out by hand. She'd thought they did that all with machines, these days. Still, it was hardly her area of expertise, and watching a couple of sappy romantic comedies didn't qualify one as an expert in the field. "EPs, right," she guessed.

"No. How did you get in? The door needs a keycard."

She shrugged one shoulder, and held up the card in her hand. "A gift from the chairman."

Lyle got to his feet. "What did you do?"

She laughed, secretly thinking, _What a control freak!_ "Ooh! Think big sister might put the reputation of this family to shame!"

He gave her a dark look. "No. I don't think you need to put _your_ reputation any more to shame," he replied dryly.

"My reputation?" she said, an amused edge to her tone, and tossed her head. "What's the prob, bro? He's not married." She refrained from any nasty words; she could hardly deny that her reputation wasn't the best. Though, she was comforted by the fact that his was no better.

"He's engaged."

An expression of interest formed on her face. "Is he?"

"Yes."

She tossed her chin. "In any case, I knew already," she said. "He needed a little help buying her an appropriate gift. I thought I'd use the situation to my advantage, and he was only too glad to help. I guess he hasn't fallen under your charms quite as completely as you'd thought."

"Actually, I didn't think," Lyle told her. "I refuse to... chum up to _that_." He made a face, and turned away from her. "Now, if you'd leave me to my work, and close the door on your way out, I don't want any more unexpected arrivals-"

She narrowed her eyes. "You mean you haven't tried? That's unlike you, little brother."

"I'd rather die. I thought you were leaving." He turned back around.

"Nope." She grinned. "He's really a good guy, huh?"

Lyle crossed his arms. "It would seem."

"Then why are you," she crossed her arms, "getting all huffy."

He pointed to the door. "Because I want to work. Leave."

She shrugged a shoulder. "I don't believe you," she replied casually. "Who'd he have done in? Which of your creepy little buds?"

"Leave."

"Until I get a proper answer, I'm staying right here," she replied, looking, for all the world, as though she hadn't a care in the world.

"Do you _want_ me to call Security?"

She looked surprised. "Why don't you come over here and show me out yourself? Scared I'd kick your butt!" She grinned. "Anyway, are you really willing to risk it? Risk destabilising our happy family image like that?"

He laughed. "I'm not even your brother," he said darkly, "and anyone who's anything in this company knows that. If you're just getting that know, I feel real bad for you, babe." He glanced at the door, then walked over to close it. "Your brother is dead," he added. "I'd wish you'd stop waiting for something to change. It's not going to, and it's a damn pain in the ass. He's dead. Got it?"

She glared at him menacingly. "What the fuck would you know, lunatic?" she spat.

"I'd know because I can tell you, it's been Hell tryin' to get you to buy that I'm your brother, and it's all been for nothin', anyway." He touched the wooden beads he wore on his right wrist. "This voodoo bling - your brother's." He tapped the side of his head. "Upgrades... your brother's."

She lunged at him, but pulled herself back before she actually did anything. "What upgrades?" she asked, the hurt finally leaking through. Her brother, dead?

"Oh," he sounded hurt for her. "You really didn't know, baby? Your brother wasn't a Pretender like you. He was an Empath. Like me." He grinned. "I thought it would help, to have something of his. But the voodoo charm didn't help. I realised I had to go for something older, something that had been with him longer. So, naturally, I thought, bing badda boom - his colony!"

She narrowed her eyes. "They fucking kill you, you imbecile!" she hissed.

He tossed his head.

"You're the idiot always parroting that Tool's party line on biomech upgrades! You know this!" She stepped toward him, and lifted her chin, indicating the bruise on his wrist. "That bruise - upgrades! They're starting to work their magic - they're killing you, you fool!"

He shrugged. "What can I say, sis? Being an only child really sucks."

She made a face. "Why don't you tell me the truth?" she asked, going for a soft, almost tender tone.

He smiled and shook his head. "Oh no, Mel, baby, that voice isn't going to work on me."

"You know my name," she said. "Raines must have really had this thing planned out from the beginning. The truth, and I promise I'll act the part of the good sister for as long as you have left."

He laughed. "It'd drive you mad."

"I can Pretend," she replied, annoyed.

"This time, pretend isn't good enough."

"Then what are you still doing here? Why don't you quit? Leave. What the fuck are you doing with the rest of your life?"

He looked at the floor. "My son's here. My friends."

That was a lie, she thought. He didn't have friends. If he thought he did, it was just that the people he termed _friends_ were damn good actors, and really valued their lives, or their careers, or just liked to have a laugh behind his back at his stupidity.

He frowned, struggling to put something into the right words, debating whether he should say it at all. "I love you."

She laughed, amused. "Don't I know," she muttered, and he looked up, meeting her eyes.

"I mean it!"

She waved a hand at him dismissively. "I know you do, you sick weirdo."

He blinked. "I didn't lie. It's the truth. You said... the truth. You'd believe me then, if I told you the truth."

She shook her head, smiling. "I said I'd play nicey-nicey. I didn't say I'd listen to one _fucking_ word you had to say and take it with a grain of faith, you bastard!" She laughed, and stared at him. "Oh, Lord! I hope you go to Hell."

"There's no such place. There's only here, and what isn't here. After you die, and you hang on, you don't get to find out how much bigger the world really is, and how much... it's all one, big interconnected thing. I guess it's just a case of using your imagination, or making your peace with what you had, and don't have anymore, and saying, 'I have nothing to lose; I have everything to gain,' and moving on. I love you now, but when I die, you'll be free. You don't love me, so you can just let go, write it all off as a lunatic's sick fancy. We can both move on. But I can't. Not yet." He rubbed his wrist.

"I wish I could, I wish I didn't have to hurt you, inconvenience you this way. I wish I didn't have to... keep fucking people's lives up like I do! I'm a fuckin' waste of a good human body! Of your time. Of everyone's time. For the things I've done right in my life - I can't even begin to describe them, list them. Maybe I've just been a shitty fucking person all along. Done nothing right. Fucked everything up." He shook his head.

"Kyle, I believed in you. Why'd you have to do a shitty thing like believe in me back? See where it got you, baby? Got you dead, darlin'."

He walked to the door, and swiped his card past the scanner.

Miss Parker followed him out of the office, frown still in place. "You believed in Kyle?" she asked, incredulous.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, simply, without stopping or turning to face her.

"I heard you say it."

"You heard me say shite. Any 'good' human will always attest to their belief in their brothers and sisters; it's a civic duty, no more. Rock out, sister! The world is full of shit and lies, but if you choose not to see it, who the fuck'll fault you, baby! Nobody could care less!" He laughed.

"People do care," she replied calmly.

He spun about. "And that's the really fucked up part, right! Am I right, or am I right, babe? It's so fuckin' fucked up cos there's shite all we can do about it, right? They'd have us all get mad and hurt one another - but we're not fuckin' savages! We're people! Fuck! Wake up! Why do they do this to us?" He smiled, suddenly. "We're fucked, right? We're all going to Hell, right? We die, we come back; shit, what've you got, back in this shit hole!" He shook his head. "It's all good fun, love. You shouldn't let it worry you. I don't!" He smiled.

"You're insane," she told him, with a frown.

"That I am - and it's fuckin' wonderful!"

"I can see that," she remarked dryly.

Lyle laughed. "You shouldn't take anything Bobby says for serious. All those pharmaceuticals really fucked with 'is 'ead, the poor baby. He's quite mad."

"Bobby didn't say shit," Miss Parker replied.

"No, I guess you're right. Shit, I'm sure it's just some shit everyone says when they're dyin'."

She laughed. "But you said it yourself," she pointed out, "you don't believe in death, really. We die, we start over again - _voila_, free pass! So there's nothin' to be scared of."

"I'd be losing you."

She stopped smiling.

"I wouldn't remember you," he said.

She took a breath and straightened up. "Did you ever think it'd be a good thing for you? A change, but a positive one?"

"Never," he said. "You weren't my sister this time, but I know that was a mistake. That's all. You should have been, you were meant to be. I know it."

She backed off. "Excuse me! Give the crazy man some breathing space." She laughed hysterically. "If you'd been my brother, you fuck, I'd have fucking killed myself!" She shook her head, honestly taken aback, honestly disgusted but too shocked to quite show it, and stalked away past him, for the door.

He turned to watch her go. "Hush now, baby. Not long now, and everything will be better. The bad person won't be able to hurt you anymore, baby. Promise." He smiled.

Then he walked to Heathrow Lounge to pour himself a glass of water, and sat down on the couch to write his girlfriend a text message: _I'm sorry we have so little time to spend together. You're great. You are. I miss you. It's like I'm not alive unless you're with me. Doesn't that suck? Maybe it's just me. I love you. Be good to yourself, sweetheart. I still love you, and miss you... Goodnight. Sleep well._

.

Jarod snatched the cell phone from his sister, skipping back quickly to read the message on the screen.

Emily shot to her feet, reaching for the phone. "Give it back, Jarod!"

He laughed. "Got yourself a boyfriend, Em?"

She made a face, annoyed. "No, Jarod, I was writing to myself in the hopes you'd walk in, grab my phone when I was in the middle of reading what I'd written myself, anyway, and assume I had a boyfriend! Wonder of wonders, I'm a fuckin' genius, right!" She laughed raucously. "Go Emily, you awesome, super cute chic with no boyfriend to speak of!"

Jarod stared at her seriously, and handed the phone back.

She snatched it off him and stuffed it in her pocket.

"You're not even going to read all of it?"

"Why would I need to?" Emily snapped. "I wrote it, remember?"

Jarod shrugged. "You should get a boyfriend. It's pretty sad that you don't, actually."

She shook her head, outraged. "And what about you, Jarod!"

He smiled. "If she'd just say 'yes,' I'd be the happiest man in the world, but, sadly, she won't."

Emily rolled her eyes, reaching for a gingerbread dinosaur and taking a bite out of it. "And why won't she?"

"It's against company policy," he replied easily. "She thinks it was all nothing more than a childhood friendship, water under the bridge, and I should just get over it."

"Then I suggest you make sure the company doesn't find out, and get her something nice that'll let her know you care for the woman she's become, and not only the little girl she once was. Maybe you could even try a phone call, or lunch."

"Hungry?"

"I'm always hungry," Emily replied.

"And you wouldn't be my sister if you weren't!" Jarod replied, grinning.

"Actually, I'd just be less hungry. You know, they reckon there's this gene, or set of genes, like, whatever, that make us greedy."

Jarod laughed. "Sure, blame it on your genes. 'It was out of my hands, your Honour. It was my genes that done made me do it! I don't know what to do, I'm in despair!'"

She threw a crumpled up wrapper at him.

"What? So what's your boyfriend's name?"

"None of your business."

"What if you get serious, and he asks you to marry him. He'd be my brother-in-law. Would I get to know his name, then?"

"If you paid real close attention at the ceremony," she replied. "Besides, we're not going to get married. He's leaving soon."

"Leaving?" Jarod asked. "Leaving you?"

"Leaving Earth, you idiot! Dying. Get it?"

Jarod made a face. "Are you having me on, Em?"

She looked away from him, to the wall. "No," she said.

"Is he Hubertus's father?"

Emily laughed.

"Is he, Em?"

"If he is, he won't be for long," she replied dryly.

Jarod walked up to her and took her hands in his.

She turned her face away from his. "Oh, Jarod, don't. You're just gonna make me mad at you. You're flustering me."

"I'm your brother," he said.

"And that's why I'm telling you," she said.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"No, Jarod, you didn't," Emily replied. "It's... just bullshit from the past. Please, don't stand so close. I'll work it out, I promise. I just... need more time."

"What bullshit from the past?" he asked, letting go of her hands and stepping back from her, the sadness in his eyes barely peeking out.

She shook her head, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Jarod, please, I don't want to say- I don't want to talk about it, it always messes with my asthma."

He nodded, not liking the situation, but knowing he had little choice about it, anyway. "Do you think I could... meet him? Your boyfriend? Maybe we could look into something that could help."

She shook her head. "I'm going to tell him I've met someone really great, so he'll worry a little less. We're breaking up."

Jarod frowned.

From the doorway, they heard a gasp. "You're breaking up with Jean-Paul!" Harmony cried.

Emily sighed, letting her shoulders slump. "Yeah, Harmony. We're breaking up."

Harmony bit her lip.

"That's his name?" Jarod asked, looking from one woman to the other.

"Of course not," Harmony said.

Jarod frowned. "Then... why do you call him Jean-Paul?"

"Because it's cute," Harmony replied. "Like Alejandro, and Sydney."

Emily stifled her laughter with a hand over her mouth.

Harmony tilted her head from side to side. "What's wrong with thinking Alejandro's a cute name, Emily?"

Emily said nothing, she just turned her back to her, still trying not to laugh out loud.

"You think Sydney's a cute name?" Jarod asked.

Harmony sniffed. "It is. Your wee, Belgian frenemy can't ruin that for me."

Emily spun back around. "Never!" She laughed.

Harmony made a face at her. Some friend she was being! Laughing about it, lagging her in like that. "I didn't know Jean-Paul was dying," she said, casually. Maybe it had been mean, to bring it up like she was getting her own back, but she only thought that after the words had already left her mouth.

"We're all dying, Harmony," Emily said.

Harmony tossed her head. It was what she was thinking, and Emily always picked up on lies easily, so she just said what was on her mind. That was what a friend did, right? "But still. It doesn't seem very nice breaking up with someone who's dying," she replied.

Emily stared at her, the colour slowly leeching from her cheeks.

Harmony leapt backward. "I'll just be... reading my e-mail!" she said quickly.

"Can I have a hug first?" Emily asked, in a quiet voice.

Harmony frowned, then stepped away from the door. "Of course you can, baby," she replied, and strode over and took her in her arms and held her.

When she'd left, Jarod offered Emily a nod, then walked to the door. Emily stopped him before he got there, though, with a hand on his arm, and, when he turned back around, she hugged him tightly. "Thanks for being my big brother," she said quietly, and let go of him and walked off, quickly.

He didn't move for a moment, and then he left the room, too, and pulled the door closed after him. _Thanks for being my lil sis_, he thought.

.

"Why do you have to go?" Reagan asked, picking at his piece of cheese toast.

"What do you mean?" Lyle asked.

Reagan frowned. "You know... die?"

"Because, baby, people die."

Reagan made a face at his piece of toast. "But you're not even old," he argued.

Kim patted his arm.

Reagan shrugged his hand away. "Eat your toast," he said. "Before I do."

"You haven't even eaten yours yet," Kim said.

"Shut up, Kimmy," Reagan snapped.

Kim stared at him, frowning. "You're not dying now, are you?" he asked Lyle.

Lyle smiled. "No, hon, not for a long time."

Reagan glared at him. _Liar_, he mouthed.

"He's not dying right now, Reagan," Kim said to the younger boy. "He just means that one day, he's going to die. We all are."

Reagan glared at him too.

Infinity reached for the ketchup.

"Gross!" Kim yelled.

"Deaf!" she yelled back.

He laughed.

She cracked up.

Reagan looked down at his toast sadly, and picked at a bit of the melted cheese that was now lukewarm.

"Hey!"

They all looked up to watch the Sweeper cross the dining hall quickly. "What's going on here?" he asked Lyle. "Those kids shouldn't be down here."

Lyle handed him his clearance card, trying not to let his hand shake too badly. The Sweeper would think he was a drug addict or something; he wouldn't trust him, then.

The Sweeper frowned, and begrudgingly accepted the card, handing it back a moment later. "I'll be watching from the door, no less," he told them.

"Hey, no problem, _friend_!" Reagan snapped hotly. "It's not like we were trying to have a private conversation, anyway!" He shot to his feet and ran away from the table.

Kim made to get up and follow him, but Fin planted a hand over his. The Sweeper had already caught up to him and was holding him tightly.

Lyle stood up and quickly made his way over to the struggling child and the Sweeper. "You shouldn't be touching him," he said plainly. "He's an Empath. Only approved individuals are permitted to handle him directly. You might inadvertently harm him. Allow me." He reached for the child's hand.

"Fuck you!" Reagan screamed at the top of his voice. "Don't fucking touch me, you child molester!"

Exasperation at the kid's attitude replaced offence at Lyle's words on the Sweeper's face, and he said, "I'm afraid I'll have to insist, sir." For all he knew, the guy was exactly what the kid said he was. The man had said the kid was an Empath and possessed the Intuitive Eye.

Lyle sighed. "I'm his brother," he said. "Even if I was a child molester- Pardon me, but I find that frankly disgusting. The entire notion, in fact." He turned a serious glance on Reagan. "And you, boy, should know better than to say such things," he told him. "Or to use such language. It is reprehensible to your decent nature. It makes you look bad."

"I guess it makes _you_ look even _worse_," Reagan smiled meanly, "_brother_!" he spat.

Lyle turned and walked away from him, back to the table.

"Are you just going to-" Kim began, but fell short when the Sweeper released Reagan. He looked at his toast, and didn't feel particularly hungry. He grabbed his plate, and Reagan's, and walked off.

Fin made big eyes. Boys! Jeez! "So how come you're dying?" she asked in a low voice.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, refraining at the last second from calling her Cheryl. She wasn't Cheryl anymore; she couldn't remember being Cheryl, she couldn't remember teaching him how to make cupcakes in the kitchen late at night.

"You don't want to talk about it, or you just don't want to talk to me about it?" she asked.

"Both," he said blankly.

"Is it going to hurt, when you die?"

Lyle watched Reagan and Kim sit down on the floor to finish eating their toasted cheese sandwiches, their backs leaning against the wall by the door, watched by the Sweeper, and said nothing.

Infinity sighed heavily. "Jeez!"

"I'm not angry at you, Infinity," he told her, "I just don't feel like talking about it."

"Sure," she replied, shaking pepper onto the remaining half of her toast.

Lyle took the shaker off her and returned it to the middle of the table.

She glared darkly at her toast, and grabbed her glass of milk, taking a sip. "I was using that," she said to the tabletop.

"I noticed," Lyle just said.

"That Sweeper doesn't trust you," she added. "I reckon he reckons Reagan might be right; you're a creepy fucking child molester."

"Let him think it, if it pleases him."

"Nice attitude to take, there," she remarked. "Wouldn't you want to kill the person, if you knew they were a child molester?"

"Killing is overrated; I'm sick of killing. It's always killing. It gets old. I want to live."

"But you're dying," she said.

He blinked, looking at her, hoping he wouldn't start bawling or anything else totally embarrassing and, like, human or whatever. "Yeah," he said. "It's pretty sucky."

"Way sucky," she agreed.

"I told my sister," he told her.

"What did she do? Bite your head off."

"Nah."

"That's not right," Fin replied. "I totally had her pinned for the type. I was so sure."

"I told her I loved her. She laughed at me."

Fin smiled. "Hey, but I bet that's the first time she's laughed all week!"

"Probably," he replied blankly.

"Do you really love her?"

"Yeah."

"Like a dude loves a chick?"

"No, like I love her."

"You're not in love with her?" Infinity asked.

"Not in the sense I've made out," he replied.

"Then why did you?"

"Do you think she'd have even talked to me if I hadn't?"

"Sure," Fin replied.

"Maybe. But I'm crazy."

"I thought that was all just part of the show," Fin told him.

"No. It's real."

"Then how come you're admitting it? I thought mad people who admitted it weren't really mad in the first place, or could get better and not be mad anymore."

"There's no more time," he said.

"There's always time," Fin said.

He smiled. "I appreciate that you're trying. I'm an asshole for being so down about this stuff around you guys, but that's what I am. What a jerk!"

"I don't think you're a jerk," Fin said.

"Honey, I appreciate your faith in me, but the only reason you don't is because, frankly, you don't know shit about me. You don't know me."

"That's a really crappy, low thing to say about yourself," Fin told him.

"And it's all true."

"I wish you a happier life next time," she said.

"Thank you, darlin'. I don't know if anyone's ever said, but you really are an angel."

"No, I'm a princess," she said, her face completely straight. Then she burst into laughter.

He smiled.

.

Emily lay on her bed on her stomach, reading a paranormal romance novel. Ethan watched her from the bed head, where he was sitting, reading the same book. He looked at Mo, sitting beside him. "33," he said.

Mo frowned. "45."

"21," Emily told them, from the end of the bed.

Mo sighed. "Em, Jarod said you had a boyfriend. Is it true?"

"He's dying," Emily replied.

"That's sucks."

"For him," Emily said. "I'm not really that into him, besides. He's kind of a drag."

"Really?" Mo asked, lying down on his back beside her.

"Totally."

"Is he rich?"

"Sorta."

"Were you hoping he'd ask you to marry him?"

"I dunno."

"But maybe you'd be able to... be normal then. Like, live normally. Without having to move around, all the time. And, like, be a normal mom to Hubertus."

Emily closed her book and rested her cheek on it. "He'd never have asked me, anyway," she said.

"How come you never got together with Hubertus's dad?"

"He was a loser jerk."

"Are you serious?" Mo asked, interest colouring his voice.

"He liked French fries too much. Freaky or what? And ice. You know, just ice. Sometimes, with water, too. Did I mention children's movies. Like, _Finding Nemo_, or _Spirited Away_. Ack! Someone direct the guy to the grownup aisle, or preferably the porn shop!" She laughed. "He was totally bipolar. He was even on, like, lithium. I guess I just didn't find it a very enticing mix."

"Jarod likes children's movies."

"Difference: he's my brother. It's forgivable."

Mo grinned. "Come on, what was it really?"

"He was a maniac," Emily replied, turning her head to look at him.

Ethan sighed heavily and snapped his book shut. "I reckon it's time to get off to bed, guys," he said, and got off the bed. He walked to the end of the bed and leant down to hug Emily, then walked to the door. "Night, guys."

Mo sat up. "Yeah, I guess. Night, Em."

"Goodnight, Mo." She sat up and leaned over for a hug.

.

Harmony stared at her cell phone, debating with herself to throw it down and forget about it, just forget the whole ridiculous idea - she'd never even spoken to Miss Parker, her little angel, for God's sake - but, in the end, she couldn't do it. She just had to say something. If she didn't, she'd forever keep reminding herself that she hadn't and feeling shitty for it. What was a couple of Goddamn words, in the grand scheme of things? What could they really hurt?

She punched in the number she'd scribbled down on the back of a shopping docket when she'd peeked in Emily's Address Book, and pressed the button to call, closing her eyes.

"Lyle Parker," Lyle replied. "Please tell me you're not a telemarketer."

"Not a telemarketer," Harmony replied, a little shyly. It was her son, it was really her son! _The mad one_, she thought, and deflated a bit.

"Nice to know, lady. Do you have a name then?"

"H-Harmony," she answered.

"Not what I would have guessed, but there you go. I'm just bad at guessing names, huh? It's pretty late, and... I don't know any Harmonys. So, what's the deal?"

"I'm a friend of Emily's," she said, lamely.

"Emily?" he asked slowly.

"Your girlfriend," she said, feeling kind of pissed off at him now.

"Oh, right, the missus. I didn't know she had girlfriends. Or ones that rang in the middle of the night."

Harmony didn't find that funny. "She never mentioned to me that you were married," she said.

He clicked his tongue. "Officially, we're not. But, ya know, she's really good at nagging. Good enough to be someone's wife, I reckon. So, seeing as she's not hooked up or anything... Plus, it's kinda, I don't know, endearing. You get it."

Harmony shook her head and said, "Sure."

"See. You do. I should... I should, um, make her something nice next time she comes 'round, you know, so she knows I reckon she's pretty special. She has a sorta bad self-esteem, which is kinda sad, cos she has no reason for it... I mean, even if she thinks she has plenty, I think... she could really benefit from lightening up about herself a bit. She's great." He stopped talking for a moment. "Are you going to say something, or is it just going to be me, blabbing all kinds of stuff over the phone to someone I don't even know? Cos, I feel kinda... dumb."

"I heard that you weren't well."

"I was born not well, Harmony. It's no big deal."

Harmony frowned seriously. "I don't think that's a very appropriate attitude to take to one's impending death, do you?"

He laughed. "I'm not dying, you daft woman! Where'd you hear that?"

"Emily told me, in fact."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I do kinda just tell her stuff, you know, to give her day a bit of excitement, a bit of drama, if you know what I'm saying."

"I do not!" she said, offended both for her friend, whom she considered like a daughter, and because this detestable human being happened unfortunately to be her son.

"Cool it, lady. Keep your hair on. Jeez. You must have a really boring life, I gotta tell you. Real b-"

"Who are you talking to?" a sleepy voice on the other end of the connection asked.

"It's someone from work, baby. Nothing to worry about. Go back to bed."

"Are you sure it's not Kyle?"

"No, babe, not Kyle."

"I want Kyle."

"I know, sweetie."

"Tell him to call me."

"The next time I see him, I'll be sure and remember."

The woman sniffed. "Darlin'."

"Uh-huh?"

"When you die, if you like, you can come and live with me. I mean, I wouldn't do mean things to you or treat you badly if I was your mother."

He laughed, with a smile in his voice. "Okey dokey, captain! I'll give it some serious thought."

"Night, baby."

"Night, you little pirate. Don't let the bed bugs bite."

"What bugs?" she whined tiredly.

"They're invisible bugs that eat bad dreams. But don't let them bite you, cos they can be cheeky, sometimes."

"If they bite me, I'll slap their faces," the woman said, her voice growing fainter, as though she was walking away. "They don't know cheeky 'til they met me!"

"Your 'something on the side'?" Harmony asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know, hon? If you've nothing better to do than make me feel bad for being a compulsive liar, I suggest you find something quick. Cos I'm about to hang up."

Harmony laughed. "Here's something," she said, "Emily will be hearing about this!" And, with that, she ended the call herself. _What a fucking bastard!_ she thought.

.

"Emily?"

She touched Emily's arm. Her eyes flew open to stare at her widely for a couple of silent seconds of horror. Who was touching her? Was it a friend, or someone else? Harmony might have allayed her fears with a couple of quiet, soothing words, but she'd thought Emily had been getting better, and she'd be frightened, and shocked, to see that she hadn't, really.

Emily struggled to sit up in bed. "Hello, Harmony," she said, patting the bed beside her. "What's up?"

"I..." Harmony sat down. "I rung Lyle," she confessed. "I got his number from your phone. It was sneaky of me, I know."

"It's okay," Emily said gently.

Harmony smiled at her, even though it was dark. "He told me he's not really dying. It's just something he told you for a laugh. He thinks it's funny, to tell you... things like that." She was still totally mad at him, she realised, far too mad considering she'd written him off from the moment she'd been told of him.

Emily sighed, resting her cheek on her back and hugging her. "It's not a lie, Harmony. I bet he just said that because he knew who you were and... I can't explain it, but it's part of the protocol, you know, part of the persona. I guess he didn't feel like talking about you guys. You know, that you're his mom."

"How would he know?" Harmony asked, disgusted.

"He's an Empath, Harmony, plus, he's seen loads of DSAs with you on them. I bet he knows what you sound like. Plus, you probably sound a bit like his sister, Miss Parker, seeing as you guys lived together and she grew up with you until, you know..."

"Over the phone?" Harmony pressed, incredulous, avoiding Emily's hanging sentence and the implication of her connection with her daughter who didn't even know she was still alive.

"He's a spooky boy. You'd be surprised," Emily said.

Harmony laughed. She really couldn't care less. "He had someone over, you know," she told Emily. "Another woman. And, if you ask me, they sounded close."

Emily's eyes widened. "What did she say?" she asked excitedly, which had Harmony frowning and seriously concerned. She shuffled forward, to the side of the bed, and stared at Harmony, hanging on the silence, waiting for her answer.

"She didn't say much, really. It was just... nothing. She'd been woken up by the phone call, and she'd come to ask who it was. He said it was a co-worker and she seemed to accept that. She said he should tell one of his friends, or someone from work, I don't know, to call her, and left to go back to bed. She called him 'baby' and 'darling.' He must have told her the same lie he told you, about dying. Why do you ask, Em?"

"'Darling'?" Emily asked.

"Yes," Harmony replied, frowning harder.

"And what did he say?"

"I just told you what he said, Emily," Harmony said.

Emily straightened her posture, and glanced out the window at the night. "Yes, you did," she said.

"Emily?"

"What?"

She was already distancing herself. Harmony tried not to feel too hurt, and said, "What aren't you telling me?"

Emily kept on staring at that window. "Did you get her name, Harm? I think I might know her."

Harmony stared at her, telling herself not to jump to any unfair conclusions that might include things she wasn't really into, but didn't, in essence have anything against: things like bisexuality or threesomes. She suppressed a shudder, and said, "No. Unfortunately, I did not."

Emily bit her lip, and put out her hand, still staring intently at the window. "Can I use your phone? Mine's low on battery."

Harmony took out her phone and placed it in her hand. Oh boy! What had she unwittingly started now?

Emily pressed in the number and held the phone up to her ear. "Don't pretend like you're sleeping," she murmured. "And if you are, tough. Get your ass to the phone right this instant, or anyone could pick up. Sydney, even." She grinned. "Then I'd really look loopy, talking to a toy penguin with creepy stalker eyes who never talks back, except with said eyes. Stalkers shouldn't be so cuddly - it's a crime!"

"What are you saying, darlin'?" Lyle asked.

"You forgot the standard greeting," she chided him. "I could be talking to anyone!"

He laughed. "Who does it sound like you're talking to, sweetheart?"

Emily thought about it for a moment, and shrugged. "Someone," she replied, dismissing the thought. "Was that the little pirate Harmony heard over the phone earlier?"

"Yeah. She sleeps terribly, as though she expects something bad to happen the moment she closes her eyes. Meteorites, burglars, party crashers; I can't fathom the girl, really."

Emily smiled, for a moment. "Maybe it's because she knows you'll be leaving soon," she said.

"You're probably right. You always were a smart thing."

"Well, I'm not my brothers," she replied.

"No, you're just you," he agreed. "And how happy I am that you are. Girl who likes taking pictures of plants, strawberry milkshakes and love stories."

"Girl who likes strange boys with strange, nearly unpronounceable French names," she added to the list, laughing.

"That's the one. How is the girl who isn't strange at all?"

"She was sleeping until Harmony woke her up and put the idea into her head to ring strange persons at all hours on someone else's phone."

"Yeah, you should probably hang up. You don't want to use all Someone Else's phone credit up."

"That would be... dorky and super lame," Emily agreed. "Love you. And that lil pirate you've got wit you. Give her a kiss for me, yeah?"

"I'll give it a shot, but she might just slap me."

"Slap you!"

"I did tell her to watch out for the bed bugs, and she said she'd slap them if they even thought about getting cute with her."

"Oh dear, you shouldn't have done that," Emily said, smiling.

"No. Goodnight, love."

"Sleep tight."

"You, too."

"Only if you do," Emily replied, and pressed the End Call button. She smiled, and handed Harm's phone back. "Thanks, Harmony."

"And?"

Emily grinned. "It's my little baby! My baby girl! Saskia!"

"If you want to believe that," Harmony replied.

Emily frowned, and lay back down. "Night, Harm."

"Sleep well, Emily."

"Dream something nice for me," Emily told her, when she was at the door. "Something romantic!" She laughed.

"We'll see," Harmony answered, and closed the door after her.

.

Emily got up at two a.m., to check on Hubertus and feed him. "It's okay, baby," she told him quietly. "Everything's okay, for now."

When she'd fed him and burped him, she lay him back down to sleep and sat watching him until his eyes finally closed. "Sleep soundly, baby," she whispered, and leaned down to kiss him on the head.

She walked to the door, and closed it quietly behind her, and turned to glance at the boy standing there.

"It won't be long now," the boy told her. "You'll be alright, then, will you? You'll manage?"

"I'll live," she said.

The boy nodded, not looking at her, but at the door to the baby's room. "Is he a cute baby?"

"All babies are cute," she told him.

"I suppose." After a while, he said, "He'll hate to leave them, you know. The little ones."

"I'll be here."

"And you have your family for support," the boy said. He leant a hand on the wall as though unsteady. "I'll be leaving now," he added, with a nod.

"Yes," she agreed. She didn't know this boy. She didn't know what, if anything, she felt for him.

He met her eyes finally, and said, "I'm sorry. We all are."

She looked away, and when she looked back, he was gone; just not there anymore. She placed her hand on the wall where he'd rested his earlier, but it was as cold as ever. "Oh, you're so fucking sorry," she whispered, and walked back to bed, tears forming in her eyes.

.

He'd fallen asleep on the couch, rather a silly thing to do, he thought, but there it was; then he'd woken up when the fridge had come back on. It sounded horrendous, or maybe it was just the mood he was in, or something.

He stood up and decided to go to bed. Silvie would be worried, even if she was asleep. That girl could worry in her sleep, he was convinced. She'd be dreaming of dark storm clouds and typhoons, of deluges. He left the lounge room, and walked upstairs, to his bedroom, and leant over to kiss Silvie on the head. "Sweet dreams from Mummy," he whispered.

She opened her eyes and rolled over. "I wanted to dream about Kyle but it didn't happen."

"Hmm..."

She stuck her hand under her pillow and produced a slip of paper. On the front of it, it read: _Kyle_, and on the back: _Listen up, or your butt'll be kicked! Majorly! Pirate's promise!_

"That's cute, honey. Real cute," Lyle told her.

"Apparently Kyle has no sense of humour, now that he's dead," she said sadly, and stowed the paper back under her pillow with the moon pattern. "Promise you won't go all gloom and doom when you're dead. Promise you'll visit!"

"I don't know that that's how it works for all of us, darlin'," he said.

She frowned, and scooted closer, leaning her forehead against his. "If you don't, I'll send my zombie clown ninjas of the undead after you in Spirit Land," she told him, matter-of-fact.

"Zombie clown ninjas," he repeated.

"You got it!"

"I'll be sure and look out for those fellows."

"And fellowettes. I have a non-gender discrimination policy."

"Ah. Noted."

She shrugged her shoulders and rubbed her face with her hands. "I'm sort of tired."

"Then I think you should get some rest, hmm."

She nodded, and lay back down. "Good idea," she said quietly. "Goodnight, Daddy."

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Goodnight, Daddy."

"Goodnight, darlin'."

She smiled, and thought about sleep, about soft pillows and warm blankets, and, somewhat off topic, parasols and her grandparents having a deep discussion about the benefits of discussing one's feelings; her grandmother was holding a parasol in one hand, as they walked by the penguin enclosure, at the zoo, and her grandfather's hand in the other, and they were talking, not even looking at the animals, at the giraffes or lions and tigers, or even the otters or buffalo. They were talking, instead, and smiling at one another.

She felt warm, and she was happy. _Goodnight, Sydney_, she thought, and it wasn't just for her friend, the penguin named Sydney who was not attending Stalkers Anonymous, as she had strongly suggested, the subversive. _Goodnight, you funny thing. Goodnight, Harmony. Goodnight, you crazy romance author. Love you both like crazy!_


	2. Chapter 2

2.

It was always, 'If they created a serum to disable the biomech tags, you never know what they might create tomorrow,' with Brown. He never said anything, he thought it was great, hope - that's the spirit, lad - but today, he just couldn't stand it. He was on the verge on grinding his teeth, or walking out. So he was thankful when Brown's phone rang, calling him away.

He got a couple of glucose lollies from Brown's lolly jar, and left.

Brown nodded; he didn't.

Down in Med Space, he offered the sweets to Cherry and Plum. He hadn't told them yet, he was so sick of telling people, of making it a big deal. Life was a big deal, dying wasn't. It was just a thing that happened, really. It didn't go on, like life. When you were dead, really dead, you didn't get better again. It was bleak, even for those who believed in life after death. Who knew the person they'd become, when they were whole again, when they could recall so much, all of the different lives they'd lived. He didn't know that he'd come back as a particularly nice person, the track record he'd set for himself in this life. He hadn't improved, he'd just seemed to have gotten worse, and flunked in the worst way possible. It frightened him. Not that he'd ever admit it, to anyone, but it did.

The sweets seemed to please Cherry and Plum, who were smiling and laughing, and making some joke, and hadn't even asked where he'd gotten them. He left them to their jobs, and walked to the elevators. Med Space made him uncomfortable. Maybe it always had. He scratched at the bruise on his wrist. He decided to take Catherine's elevator. He needed cheering up. And, for a little while, he could sit on the floor and feel better.

.

Reston was looking pale. He'd once been treated to a seminar on the topic of upgrades, and had personally held a jar in his hands containing half of Kayla's brain; the half containing the biomechanical colony, of course. He hadn't liked the noise it had made when the man standing next to him had shook the jar about. That was one seminar where he hadn't eaten any of the food, despite how good it had looked, and, when he'd gone home at night, and stopped for takeout, he'd only managed to get through half of it before he'd threw it back up.

Now, as he sat in the dining hall, trying to convince himself to eat something - even if just a little something - he couldn't stop thinking about Kayla, and how, very soon, someone he knew personally would be dead because of those damn, infernal upgrades, and maybe even dissected later and stowed away in jars filled with chemicals and bits of body parts.

"Would you like to join us?"

It was the one person he'd have killed not to have approach him, at the very moment. Lyle. "Why?" he said bluntly, glancing across to the 'them' in Lyle's 'us,' and looking for a sign on any of their faces of opposition to this idea. Cox was talking with the Cherryplums; Sam was frowning down at the page of a magazine on weapons of some most likely deadly nature; Marsh - Allison - was licking her top lip and staring at her coffee in a way that gave him the heebie-jeebies and made him want to shout at her, 'Just drink it, already, woman! There's no foreplay involved in drinking a Goddamn coffee!'; Midori was eating a fancy garden salad, picking out the cherry tomatoes with a fork, and no one was looking at him. Not Sims, not any of the L5 Sweepers: Calum, Adrian, Mickey, Maria, not even Dewy.

"You look lonely," Lyle said, which really gave Reston the heebie-jeebies. He hadn't forgotten that incident at the Halloween function when Lyle had thought it funny to sing him a cute little song, complete with nightclub-esque dance moves, just because he'd told Lyle to go to Hell and mind his own business when he'd asked him not to make passes at his sister. As if Lyle's behaviour hadn't been embarrassing enough; passing out had really done the trick and sealed the deal. He'd been a laughing stock. Needless to say, he'd not hit on Miss Parker since. So, it had been effective, he thought, if nothing else good. Good strategy.

"What?"

"You're not sitting with anyone. I thought you looked lonely," Lyle said. "You can come and sit with us, if you'd like."

He tried not to make too obvious of a face. Yeah, right, and what was next! He quashed the urge to snort - elves, perhaps - and shook his head. "I don't think so, but it was great of you to offer. I'm not lonely, actually. In any case, I'm not feeling well, and I'd be mortified if I passed my sickness onto anyone else."

Lyle frowned. "You're not sick," he said.

"Well, perhaps I am," Reston rebutted. "I don't see your medical degree. But, nonetheless, sick or no, I feel unwell." Obviously, Lyle was having one of his _Gone to another planet, be back who knows when_ moments, he thought. Otherwise known as _insane_.

"I don't believe in medical degrees," Lyle reported.

"Is that right?"

"Very."

"Well, then, I don't think we'd make very good friends, beside."

"Beside where?" Lyle asked, confused.

The accent was different, Reston thought. It had been for as long as they'd been talking. It annoyed him. Some sort of hick accent, he supposed. "Look, why don't you just go back and sit with _your_ friends and leave me to myself!"

Lyle blinked, and looked at the floor, biting his lip. "I still say you're lonely; you just won't admit it because that would mean it was true. Not just someone else's... thoughts, but really true!"

Reston shook his head. Unbelievable! "What is it gonna take for you to get lost?" he snapped.

Lyle looked up from the floor, frowning. "I have a very good sense of direction; I rarely get lost, unless, of course, I'm not intending to, and that's just my very good luck."

"Scram!"

"I think I'll walk, thank you," Lyle replied.

Reston waved a hand in the direction of the table; piss off.

"Good day, Carter," Lyle said, and walked back to the table he'd previously been sitting at.

Reston made a face. Oh, gross! He hadn't needed to hear Lyle call him by his first name. He wondered if he was developing a first name phobia, like Miss Parker, and consoled himself that it really didn't matter much at all; his first name wasn't really much of a first name, anyway.

.

Ethan frowned at Emily's silent tears, kneeling down to meet her downcast gaze. "What's wrong, Emily?" he asked.

She didn't have an answer for him. The end of one life wasn't just the end of one life, in reality, it changed many other lives, too. How would she ever live without the other half of her soul? She'd faced living without her children, in the past, even without him, but she'd always known that somewhere, somewhere out there, they were alive, living their lives. How could she do this? When it really happened, how could she breathe? How could she think of anything else, ever again? She didn't know if she'd be strong enough, and, if she was, she knew it would kill her inside to accept it, just like that, it would leave an indelible scar that would forever remind her of the past, that, to look upon it, would bring all the pain rushing back like it'd been yesterday the trauma had been sustained. Her whole life would become one great contradiction unto itself, tenfold. That kind of stuff just never happened to the good Mediators: They were calm and collected at all times. They felt what they needed to feel, to get the job done, and they put the other stuff away, into storage, neatly filed, for later inspection, because it wasn't top priority material.

How could she ever hope to explain the madness of it all to Ethan, to poor little Ethan; Ethan who thought _he_ was her best friend, her younger brother, her unshakable companion on the long and oft bumpy road called life.

Poor, poor child. Weren't they all just children in this world? Poor, sad children; marred by imperfect moments of happiness, of joy and illusion, of connection. Poor, sad children who could, at a moment's notice, be swept away, swept into the warm, stormy arms of love, into the heart and soul of another poor, sad child.

She forced a smile onto her face, eyes shining with tears, spring's brand new leaves beaming at the sun, dancing in the spiralling breeze, catch my heart, catch my breath, if I could, love, painful and terrible and beautiful, so Goddamn beautiful, just like she'd seen him do a million times. She'd miss those eyes, she thought, she'd miss them like she'd miss the stars from Earth, were she to be sucked into space and transplanted thousands, millions of light years away, on a foreign planet. She would miss those gorgeous eyes.

"Nothing," she said brightly, there was the summer breeze, careening between wildflowers rambling wild on the prairie, her eyes, bright, like little suns, so full of false sunshine, and wasn't that what made it burn stronger, burn longer - to know that one little lie could make a difference to someone's day, a super, great fabulous h-h-happy difference. Smile, baby! Smile, you! Do you feel the planet turning, hurtling? Do you feel it? It's life!

She stood, leaping to her feet, and it felt great to be back. Hoo-yah! "I'm great," she told him, smiling spectacularly, and she was. Wasn't life great!

The look on Ethan's face took a long time to change, to figure on to the game, and give in.

_Boy's got a great heart_, she thought, _hasn't the heart to see me hurt. If the truth's the cost - what's the cost? We got money to burn on the good times, baby! Burn it all! Don't stop! Let the good times roll on!_

She laughed, and flung her arms around him, pulling him to her for a hug. "Life's great! I'm great! You?"

"Great," he murmured, his heart quite possibly breaking. The hurt people would endure for those they loved seemed often... absurd; cruel and unusual.

"You're the best brother ever!" she whispered.

.

Jarod watched the warming family scene from the doorway, and felt unaccountably hurt. Why did it have to hurt this why? Why did he have to feel envy for Ethan? His lot in life had been no less cruel, and he had to feel this pain, he had to think, _You weren't meant to be. Your parents didn't dream you up, they didn't mess up and there you were, you were just a piece in someone's crazy scheme! Why is it _you_ and not _me_?_

He left the doorway, hurt by his own feelings and thoughts, hurt because of Ethan, and for Ethan, and really, really hurt for himself!

Cruel! Cruel world!

If only Kyle had lived; nobody would have been able to challenge him for Kyle's affections. They'd had a connection. They'd almost grown up together. That sort of thing was unbreakable, deep down in a person's soul; unbreakable!

Tears blossomed in his eyes, thinking of that little blue-eyed, raven-haired girl, that young miss. Oh for all the things in the world we'd been told unbreakable only to watch with unguarded horror - too much glee - when they shattered at our feet! How to respond to that, to the fact that everything - _everything!_ - broke, sometime.

.

Miss Parker stared down at the psychology journal in confusion: Who'd died lately? Had the Graffitist taken a sick day? She took out her pen, promptly, intending on scribbling in the missing message - if she needed to, she was sure she could forge the handwriting, and right now, she _really_ needed to! - but the hand placed over hers froze her in horror and shock, forcing her heart into a faster beat, and her eyes flicked up to meet Sydney's. Dang! _This isn't what it looks like!_ leapt from the depths of her thoughts, but never made it to her lips.

"You're absolutely sure that he's not your brother?" he asked in a quiet voice, and her eyes flashed in confusion, hurtling through thoughts, and finally stopping...

"Yes! No! He's not... my brother! Or anything else that I could give a flying toss about! Human, even!"

Sydney offered a frown to her scowl; not meant for him, but he was there, wasn't he? "And if it turned out-"

"It won't!" She growled. "He told me himself, the other day! Right to my face, the li'ool fucker! Bam! My face! I felt like I'd be slapped! 'Stole these from your _real_ brother's corpse! Pried them from his cold, dead hands! Oh, and then there's this! Can't understand how it never worked! Got a bit of him here inside of me. How that didn't work out makes no sense, baby bay. Say, why was that?' Freak! FREAK!"

"Are you alright?" Sydney asked. "Or should I give you a moment?"

"I want him _dead_!" she hollered.

"Got your camera, love?" Lyle asked, with a friendly smile. "Take a pic! Happy memories, eh! Won't keep you waitin', nah." He nodded, grinned. "Dig up that camera."

She threw a thousand deadly knives in his direction with just her eyes.

"'S a nice day out. Too nice a day to be inside. Wha' do ya know - we got a lead on Jarod." He nodded to Broots, standing behind her. "Marvellous!"

"Miss P.-" Broots began, and she straightened up and stalked out of the room like a woman on a mission. Broots ran back into Tech Space to collect his gear and head after her.

Lyle smiled and shook his head. "Sad, how one forgets. Forgets how to be just us, just human. Gets around playin' at bein' somethin' else, instead, like it's one big, festive game. Must remember now, must wake up. Forget that what's waiting is persecution by our brothers and sisters, by all those pryin' eyes, just remember, tell them 'no,' 'I remember how to love me, and I can love you, too.' 'I'm just loaded with Special Features, and I come in every language on Earth!' Sure to get a few laughs, no?" He laughed, smiling, and spun about, toward the door. "No need to be sad, though. None at all. _Happy_, ever noticed how it doesn't rhyme with _well-mannered_, _level-headed_, _truth_. But who cares! Not me!"

"Rhymes with _loopy_, though," Sydney replied, more to himself than to Lyle. "Just about."

"Life's good fun, Syd. And you know somethin', people like loopy. Like roller coasters well enough, those funny straws; skippin' ropes, knitted jumpers, so cuddly, jus' a bit itchy... well, unless o' course they're acrylic... Plastic - you gotta love it!"

"You gotta lay off the caffeine," Sydney told him.

"I don't think so, love, I feel great!"

"'Love'? Are you really going to go with that one?"

"Nothin' wrong with love, Syd."

Sydney didn't reply to that. This, from him. Wasn't that just awesome? They reached the elevators and he pressed the button. Perhaps Miss Parker was right, that couldn't possibly be her brother - he was quite insane, alright.

Waiting for the elevator, Lyle hummed Cher's _Song for the Lonely_.

Sydney suppressed the urge to whack him over the back of the head. The kid was on drugs.

"Have you got a sweet?" Lyle asked, glancing away from the doors as they closed after them, "my diabetes is acting up again."

"You're not diabetic," Sydney told him.

"Fancy that," Lyle replied. "I guess that's just another of my delusions." He rolled his eyes. "No. I am. Come on, Syd. I'm dying here." He bounced up and down on the spot. "And I love, love, love that song!"

Sydney stepped away from him.

"Please! It's a really cool song."

Making a split second decision, Sydney stepped back from the wall and slapped him across the face.

Miss Parker's eyes widened, standing on the other side of the open doors. "What-? Forget it! I don't wanna know! Get your asses to the jet!"

Lyle made a face. "It didn't help."

Broots handed him a doughnut. "Knock yourself out."

Lyle smiled as though Broots had just handed him something very illegal, and very cool.

"Just eat it," Broots moaned, picking a doughnut out of the box Silvie had given him that morning for no particular reason other than that they'd been on sale at the shop when she'd got off work and she'd had to buy them.

Lyle took a bite of the doughnut and hummed along to _Build Me Up Buttercup_. "Do you think that's a cool song?" he asked.

Broots refrained from the obvious eye roll, and said, "Yeah. Really cool."

It wasn't until they'd taken seats on the jet that Lyle said, suddenly, "My lil girl's turning into a shopaholic!" as though this was... amazing.

Broots held out the packet of doughnuts. "Yeah, sure," he replied.

Lyle laughed, and leaned closer to ask quietly, "Do you think Sydney or sis might like a doughnut?"

"Sydney looks so enthusiastic from where I'm sitting," Broots replied sarcastically, and glanced sceptically at Miss Parker. "Hey, you! Girly! Doughnut?"

Miss Parker's eyes flashed, and she shot up out of her seat.

"I dared him," Lyle told her, grinning. "He's so suggestible. It's so cute!"

Miss Parker punched him in the arm - really hard - and snatched a doughnut from the packet, then another, and swept off back to her chair, beside Sydney's.

"No," Sydney said, and Parker shot him a deadly look. He took the doughnut.

She smiled menacingly, and picked a piece out of her doughnut and popped it in her mouth.

"Don't play with your food," he said, and, quick as a whip, she picked out another piece and flicked it at him.

He coughed. "Kids."

"You know we keep you young," she joked, and he threw a piece of doughnut back at her. She stared, then she laughed.

She started humming _The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)_. "Sing it with me, Syd!"

"Oh no," he told her surely. "That's where I draw the line."

"... _That's where it is. Oh yeah!_..."

Lyle hummed along.

Broots covered his face with his hands. "Now is not the time for a twin moment," he moaned. He was so embarrassed right now. He vowed never to let Miss Parker near doughnuts again. Ever! (Or to let Debbie play Cher on the stereo when they were in the car together.)

.

In the middle of a supermarket aisle, much to Jarod's utter embarrassment (and Margaret's), Emily grabbed a hairbrush off the rack and started singing to a song that appeared to be playing only in her head.

"I suppose this is what I get for sending the kid to that hippie, tree-hugger loving school," Margaret muttered.

Jarod glanced at her strangely.

"Ah, damn!" She shook her head. "I was just too accepting of her love of plants, that's what. I see it now! Oh, the error of my ways." She laughed. "If only she'd been an environmental journalist, eh. Or... some sort of park ranger."

"If only," Jarod agreed, wincing at his sister's rendition of _Born With the Hunger_. It wasn't that she wasn't good, it was more the fact that she _was_. People had started to stare, and he didn't like the looks on some of their faces.

She wheeled around and grabbed his arm, grinning up at him. "Sidekick?"

His eyes widened in a big _No!_

Emily started to hum, tugging on his arm as she swayed to the beat of _I Got You Babe_.

What Jarod desperately wanted to ask was _Was she always like this?_, but he already knew the answer by the sparkle in her eyes: From the moment she'd first learnt to breathe, it had been her destiny. She just enjoyed it so.

Maybe, in school, she'd even sung duets with her best friend, in those days when she'd been so in love with love, with the distant future (but oh so near), with youth and all things bright and warm like sunbeams. Oh, to go back in time, back to those days! And, oh, to live again - in the here and now.

Margaret took the hairbrush from Emily. "I think we'll just take this one," she said, and grabbed Emily's hand with her free hand. "Time to blow this joint, Louise."

.

Miss Parker stepped off the jet, narrowing her eyes against the cloud overhead, and flipped her sunglasses over her eyes. Lovely! Great weather! She spun about swiftly and snapped her fingers. "Action stations!"

.

They'd missed Jarod at the pet shop, but they'd been assured of receiving a clue in the mail the next day, and so had been forced to retire to a local motel for the night. Miss Parker drank a lot of coffee and stayed up late, going over the lead. Sydney spent the time catching up on the latest psychology journal, blissfully graffiti-free, and Broots glued himself to the television screen for the _CSI_ watch-a-thon. Lyle didn't stay up with the others, but retired early. Broots wasn't complaining; the snacks in the bar fridge were all his!

After all that, Lyle woke late when Sydney came in to shake him awake and advise he get ready to roll. He didn't tell him that he looked like he'd not slept at all, he just kept that to himself. There was a dark, unattractive bruise colouring his cheekbone, but Sydney didn't say a word about that, either.

Broots, in the bathroom, stared with a funny look and said, "You fall out of bed?"

"Something like that," Lyle replied quietly, reaching for the tap with shaking hands.

Broots leant over and turned it on for him, then left the room, heading out for breakfast with the rest of the crew.

When he finally made it down to the diner, the girl behind the counter made big eyes and touched her cheek: You got something there.

He patted the little dead boy standing by the condiments table on the head, and joined the others at the table. "Take it easy, hey."


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Outside the pet store, Lyle found a public bench and sat down, apparently feeling under the weather. Miss Parker, from her spot inside the shop, by the counter, nodded for Sydney to deal with whatever it was, and decided to go out and see what was up. She was, after all, his sister. So they said. She would be free soon. He'd promised. So... what could it hurt now?

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked; not in her typical chairman's daughter/Ice Queen voice, just in her voice, Mel's voice. She noticed, though, that she'd crossed her arms. A defensive gesture, right? Or was it just the weather, as sunny today as it had been yesterday, or as it hadn't been yesterday.

Across the street, a bus pulled up, and passengers began piling in. Lyle watched them without saying anything for a while. Finally, it was, "Fine. I'll be fine."

She narrowed her eyes, and remembered that her sunglasses were resting on the top of her head, and pulled them down over her eyes. Tourists made her edgy; all of those excited, happy people... so the movies always made out. She hated those movies, too, with a passion. Holiday movies.

But that wasn't good enough. 'Fine' wasn't good enough with what she'd put on the line. She expected nothing less than the truth.

She stepped a little closer, and lifted her shades back up onto her head, her expression serious. "Let me tell you something, brother. I'm only playing along with this sibling shit because I appreciated that, for once in your pathetic life, you were honest about something. Yes, I believed you. But right now - I think you're a fucking rotten liar!"

He smiled, "Honest!", bit his lip. "You must know one thing about me, darlin'," he turned to look at her, to meet her eyes, smiling, unlike the seriousness of her face, "honesty is not something that comes to me very often, an' even less often when I think the person I'm honest with is gonna take with them what I said - that'd be you, love!"

She glared.

"No, don't make that face at me. Here's a little bit of honesty for you: I do apologise for having spoken about Theodore that way, for having been so sarcastic, but if I'm to be honest with you, darl, a little honesty in return wouldn't kill either of us. So give up the caring sister routine - it really makes me want to vomit. Your brother's dead. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Don't try to replace him with me, real or not. That's... that's not right. I'm sure, if he'd have had the... chance, he'd have been a much better person than I've ever been, you... you hurt him, and you hurt yourself. I'm not your brother; don't pretend. Just... don't.

"Fuck what they all think - they've been tryin' to shove this thing down your throat from Day One, and from Day One you've known it was a sham. Go with your instincts, okay. Don't let them win. I'm nothing to you, nothing but one more liar, so add me to that list, but don't make out I'm someone who could ever mean something in your world. I'm a fuckin' bastard, truth be told. You don't want to be that. Don't tolerate it. Just don't. I know you'd dearly love to tell me where to go, and you know what, if you did, I'd not be hurt at all. I know what I am, I'm fully conscious of it, and that might make it all the worse, but them's the facts. You've been running for cover your whole life, ducking and weaving just to survive, you don't deserve this shit from me.

"I'll be gone soon; if you could just forget I'd ever existed, after I'm gone, that'd probably be the nicest thing you could ever do for me. Just forget. Of course, it would also be wrong. For all of those people I've wronged, or hurt... or fucked their lives up completely. Completely wrong. Darlin', I have never done a single, fuckin' thing to deserve your kindness or consideration."

For a long moment, after he'd stopped talking, she was quite still. The bus had gone now, tourists, too. Across the street, the sidewalk was almost empty. She didn't look; she kept her eyes on his. And said, "I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing it for myself."

He smiled, and stood up. "I think Sydney would like a word."

She turned quickly, and walked away, snapping her shades back over her eyes as she walked.

He looked at the little boy sitting on the bench beside him. "Hey, baby. How you feelin'?"

The little boy said nothing.

Silently, Lyle placed his hand over the little boy's tiny hand on the bench, and in a hospital someplace, a little boy woke up; by that time, the little boy on the bench had quite disappeared.

.

The clue led them to Jarod's hideout, only it was several days too late. Jarod was long gone; Miss Parker was pissed off. She didn't snap at Broots; she just wished Lyle would hurry up and die.

Darkly, she thought that that might get him to pop by on one of his flying visits: he'd apparently bought Raines's elaborate fabrication that Lyle was her long lost twin brother, Theodore, and perhaps, with him dead, he'd even feel a tiny speck of something, of a connection with her... his brother was dead, too, though they'd not been twins. Dead, nonetheless. It was a big tragedy. And maybe it was, she thought. She'd not known Kyle, after all, there'd only ever been the horror stories. Maybe they'd met, maybe she'd spared him a scowl, or even a glare; she'd hated him, for a couple of seconds, perhaps even a whole minute, but he'd not made much of an impression on her, and when he'd died, he'd died in her world, too; erased, just as he'd been erased in the real world.

She never thought, _What if...?_ Not even once.

.

"Hey. Hey..."

"Hey, hey, yourself," Lyle replied, glancing at Broots with a sort of morbid, sort of nothing expression.

"What's going on with you, anyway? All these mood swings."

"I'm dying."

"You're what?" For a moment, Broots seemed to have trouble wrapping his mind around that idea.

"Dying. It's a relatively simple process, in itself, Ezra. You die, you're dead, who the Hell gives a shit what's next."

"If it's someone who... who is a friend, I do!" Broots countered.

"You do? You've gotta be kidding me, bud. A friend. I'm not your friend. I'm not your kid's friend. I'm nobody's friend. The fact that I'm alive, that fact alone, puts shame to the concept of friends. Friends don't sadistically, gleefully kill one another and then look around with that _What's next?_ sparkle in their eye. Or lie through their teeth on a par with breathing. They don't just expect that the world should work according to how they see it, or how they want it; they believe everything exists as a part, one part, one integral part, of the large being. Not because they must have dreamed it up for their own enjoyment!

"Don't call me 'friend,' with respect."

Broots made a face. "I've gone along with them, too. With the company. To make money. Money for me and my lot. I've not stood up to them and said, 'Enough is enough, mate.' I'm-"

"You've been bidin' your time; waitin' 'til you could get to that position where you could make a change, even just a small change. Every change is a change; every good deed is a good deed. That's what you've been doin'," Lyle told him. "You're not like me at all. We're completely, irrevocably different."

Broots frowned. "No. We're not. We're people."

Lyle sighed. "'People'? No. You're a person. I'm not. I've not wanted to be, see. I've wanted to be something else; something... different. Better, you could say. Look at all you people; disgusting! That's me. Don't want to be a person; want to tell people what to do, how they should live their lives, but never, never do I want to be one. If I did, then I'd just be a person, and someone else would come along and try to tell me how to live my life, and what lies to swallow, and- No, I never did want to be somebody's idea of a lark.

"What I am; we don't see things like you do, we don't see the world as a very interesting place, really. The game, the game, however - that's another story, baby! That is _another_ bleedin' story! That - is somethin' to live for!"

Broots shook his head, to disagree. "Genetically, you are a person," he said. "And you still have that choice, no matter what you've done in the past, if you want it enough, enough to put aside everything else, then the future is an open book, just waiting to be written."

"In the ideal world," Lyle replied. "Which isn't real."

"All you can do is die, right?" Broots joked. Then, on a more serious note, "What've you got left to stop you, at this stage? Now? Deadline looming, and all. Every change is a change, right? Here…" He handed him a tissue from his pocket, for his blood nose.

.

He'd told Debbie, of course, and Debbie had complained at his attitude: There's always a way to do _something_, she'd said, with conviction.

And, yes, he'd agreed, it was only that the part of him that was fucked wasn't a part he could heal, it wasn't even alive. Part of the upgrades was alive, true, but not the part that was killing him, and there was no way to repair it. That was just how it was. He supposed it might have been payback, for all of those others he'd allowed to be murdered by the upgrades: Finally, it's your turn. Happy face, yeah!

Debbie hadn't let him see her cry, but he'd known she would, anyway. He'd been her first friend, that was his big claim to fame there. And it always hurt when your first friend died.

.

Jarod couldn't work it out, didn't know how it had happened. Yes, he believed people could overcome great odds, but he'd not envisaged this, not in a million years. The accident had taken from him his year-older brother, who'd been four, and he himself had been plunged into what had been diagnosed as a permanent vegetative state. Everyone had given up hope.

And then he'd sort of… woken up.

Jarod didn't get it, but he wasn't complaining. There were a lot of things, he guessed, he didn't know about the universe and its inhabitants. A lot of things.

He was just glad for that little boy and his family. Glad that they could be together again.

.

When he got back from work, Emily was reading a romance novel – he'd read the blurb when she'd bought it, apparently the heroine was human and the hero some kind of alien; it had seemed far-fetched. He took a seat on the sofa beside her and sipped his coffee, resisting the urge to get up and find some Pez. He had a real Pez addiction; it was impossible! "How's Hubertus?" he asked, finally.

"Sleeping," she replied, without taking her eyes from the novel in her hands.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You were good yesterday."

"What?"

"In the supermarket. When you were singing. You were good."

She rolled her eyes, but didn't look at him. "I did some stuff at school, singing stuff, you know."

"I didn't go to school, Emily."

She made a face. "Yeah, but you know about all that crap. You'd have hated it, anyway. Like you're some kind of performing… I'm sure you know that feeling."

"I do."

"So quit pesterin' me about it, already."

"I wasn't pestering," he argued. "I was just saying that you were good."

She looked at him. Finally. "Thank you."

"That's okay. You deserve it."

She rolled her eyes again. "Don't… do that. All that _Proud of you!_ shit! It makes me sick. I'm not telling you off, I'm just saying I have issues; shit to work on."

"Did Mom not tell you she was proud of you, Emily? Or Dad?"

She snorted. "Yeah. Sure. Plenty."

"Is that the truth?" he asked, trying to catch her eyes.

She laughed. "No, it's not the fucking truth, you-!" She laughed again. She didn't seem able to stop. "They're not monsters, Jarod, I've just not always… I've had my moments, okay. And Mom's not always been proud of those moments, the same as Dad hasn't. Harmony's always been proud of me, no matter what, but, you know, we're friends, so that's not the same thing. Mom wasn't proud of me when I… when I got into that accident, or when I ran away. Or when I came back – pregnant. She wasn't proud of me when I decided I wanted to write romance novels. Or even when I got pregnant with Hubertus. But, on the whole, it's really not the point if she's proud of me or not – she loves me, that's all that matters, really. Dad does, too. You all love me. _Yay!_ for me!"

"I do love you, Emily," Jarod said.

She shook her head, grinning in a way he found inappropriate and sad, like she didn't quite believe him, or… Well, he knew she believed him. "I know," she said, and then she didn't say any more. Maybe she knew she'd only make things worse.

Jarod followed her example, and read the paper instead.

.

Charles sat across the table from his wife, Margaret, and waiting for a long moment, listening to the silence of the house, determining if it was safe to talk honestly. It seemed the boys were asleep, Harmony, too, probably; so, it was safe. (Zoe was staying in the country somewhere, getting better, a little bit each day. He'd be glad to see her again, when he passed by her way. She was a bit like a daughter to him, in truth.)

"If the boy's dying, what's going to happen to Em then?" he asked, finally.

"She'll survive," Margaret replied. "She's a tough kid." She shook her head. "I don't see what the big fuss is, really, though."

"The big fuss about Convergence?" Charles asked.

Margaret laughed. Just a bit. "Yeah," she said.

"I don't see, either, but I know it happens, sometimes. Sometimes, it happens that it's not good for one person when that other person they have Convergence with dies. That's just how it goes sometimes, hon."

"But why did it have to be our Emily and that awful boy?" Margaret sighed.

"I don't know, hon. I honestly don't. If it could have been some other way, don't you think I'd have given anything, given the whole damn world for our baby girl! But there never was any other way short of them never meeting, at all. And, given our family histories, and being as they are, complicated, I don't think that was ever going to be a possibility. They'd have met sometime, honey. It would have happened, in the end, anyway."

Margaret sighed. "You're right. I know that. I just… feel like a fool, and so useless. I want… I want to do something! To make it right! Find… Find someone, for her, someone… better…"

"I don't think there's anything in this world that could stop her from caring about him, sweetheart, no matter what we do. She knows how he is, the things he's done, and that's never stopped her, at all. Maybe, when he's… moved on, she'll find someone else, and let go of it, of… him. I honestly hope she does, but you know – _I_ know – nothing's gonna be able to erase the past. It'll still always be there, in the past."

"I feel so bad for Harmony, having a son like that," Margaret shared.

"Well, no, that I don't feel bad about. She's hardly known the boy; she's had no say in his actions, or how his life's gone. She's not been there to say… anythin'. I don't feel bad for her on that count, and neither should she, come to it. But I do feel bad that someone like that's been allowed to continue on in much the same fashion with all of… his horrible deeds."

Margaret nodded. "It isn't right."

"No. It isn't."

.

Harmony didn't go in, after that. She listened to their conversation for a while, then she left. She supposed the time had come when a telephone call wasn't enough, or a goodnight wish one would never hear. It was just too little, too late. She had to go there; she had to meet her children. She had to do it.

And, finally, she wanted to.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Ethan was coming with her. That much she'd decided upon. She'd told him, 'I won't take 'no' as an answer,' and that's just what she intended; she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Besides, she didn't know how safe it was going alone, all things considered. She had, at one time, been Catherine Parker, after all.

Ethan hadn't been overly pleased about this prospect, but he'd been cheered by the fact that he might actually have some time to spend with his sister, Miss Parker. Not the brother stuff, though.

On the bus, he told her about how Miss Parker didn't believe Lyle was her real twin, anyway. She'd told him that, he said, and nodded, like it had been some big thing, a slip of the tongue she hadn't meant to divulge.

And she asked, "How is that?" Her phrasing might have been better, but they were on a bus, and buses just didn't make her happy.

"It's just a feeling she gets," Ethan replied. "She said it was just a feeling; not like she had any concrete evidence to the contrary, but she… she reckons she trusts her feelings, at least, about that. She says I feel like I could be – I _am_ – her brother, fine enough, but not that one… Lyle."

Harmony nodded, but offered nothing in return. She'd noticed how people often talked about Lyle like that: it, that one, the boy, the lunatic. As though they thought by not giving him a name, it would be better. He wasn't a proper human, after all. Except, she knew, as much as she hated him, he was. He was as proper a human as any human who'd ever been born; humans just weren't perfect moral beings, and probably never would be. Why people expected it, she didn't know. They liked to kid themselves a lot, was the only conclusion she could draw. Of course they did. Or they liked to believe in the fantasy: I'm a good person. But, oh, look at that one! That one's no good at all!

She didn't actively encourage people's immoral behaviours, but she knew they were a fact of life. Such is life! That was the old saying, wasn't it.

The next town they stopped in, they got off the bus and went in search of a rental place, to rent a car. They'd drive the rest of the way to Blue Cove. The bus had been making them both restless, anyway.

"Do you think he's really her brother?" Ethan asked, as they were passing some nondescript farmland she wasn't really interested in looking at, pretty out of the blue, all in all.

"I don't know. I haven't met him in person. Maybe… maybe when I do, I'll be in a better position to make some sort of… decision. I don't know." She was talking herself in circles, and she didn't like it, so she stopped talking. Then she started, again. "What about you? What do you think?"

"He's a Class Five Empath. That's what they all say. I could be confused, couldn't I. They can do that. You know."

She frowned. What was he saying, exactly? Did he believe that Lyle honestly was his brother? "You think he is your brother?"

"No- I… I don't know. You- I'm just saying, he's an Empath, he could be messing with my perceptions, you know."

"Yes, I suppose," she agreed, but she didn't think that at all. She thought Ethan just wasn't willing to give up another family member, real or not. Not after all of the other losses. Not even if he was an awful, horrible, monstrous person.

That made her sad.

.

"Alright, that's enough! I've had it! I've been patient, more than patient, and now I need answers! The truth! Is that so Goddamn hard to ask? Is it? I just want to know the truth. You've had your little secrets, the two of you, and I've respected that. Now I need to know."

With wide eyes, Debbie stood up, ignoring the television screen she'd been watching without really watching for the past hour and a half – she didn't even know what was airing, couldn't have said if asked. "What are you talking about?" she said, though she knew, once she'd said it, that that was the classic dead giveaway. She knew what he was saying, and she wanted to avoid it, dodge it, put away any conflict for a later date. Only he was setting an ultimatum right now, with his words.

"You know what," Cox replied, failing, for all of his efforts, to keep the anger from his voice, the disillusion and suspicion and hurt. "Who would you choose, Debbie? If it came to that, and it was a choice between the three of us: him, me, your dad – who would you choose? Just answer me that."

Debbie crossed her arms. She could scarcely believe he was even asking her this, but at a time like this, to ask then, made it all the more unbelievable. "I'd choose my sister," she replied, her voice calm and firm, just as she'd commanded it, "Silvie."

He laughed, a laugh that immediately screamed _You have my permission to be worried, officially_.

She wasn't worried for herself, but for Frankie, for the man she loved. He wasn't thinking straight, he was taking it all out of context, like now she wasn't even allowed to have friends, or something… it did her head in just to think on it too long.

"No, you wouldn't choose Silvana," he said, so sure. "You'd choose him. I know you would. You'd choose him, over all of us."

"That isn't true," she said calmly, though, inside, she wanted to yell those words instead.

"Yes it is. He loves her, and you love him. But he doesn't even see you, just like she doesn't see him," Cox said.

Debbie's eyes flashed. She'd officially lost her patience with him – with him and his utter _stupidity_! "He loves her like a sister, you idiot! And I love him like a brother! Don't you get it! You're- You're making me so mad, with all of these allegations, you're a complete fool! Who do you think we are? The FBI? Part of Sally's crazy group! We're your friends, you idiot! I'm your friend! I love you. But I'm sick to death of all of your suspicion and… and the way you _expect_ everyone to be the same, and some – some kind of lunatic biding their time and waiting to get you!

"I hate you for that! You know-! You had a sister! You have a sister! Cherry and Plum are like your sisters! And you criticise me for feeling close to someone, for caring for someone else! I've never accused you of being secretly in love with Cherry or Plum, but, oooooh, it's okay to accuse _me_! It's okay to accuse your friend," she said, quietly, "because he's a freak! Because there's always been someone just not right with him, something you didn't trust, from the very beginning."

She shook her head, actually physically shaking now, and looked straight into his eyes, not even blinking back the tears that rose in her watery eyes. "I hate you right now, do you know that?"

She turned, and left the room, leaving the door open after her. Slamming doors just wasn't her thing, and it was gonna stay that way.

Cox sank down on the sofa she'd been sitting at earlier, and felt like crying himself. Wasn't it always the same? The same thing, over and over. Everyone always forgave _him_. Midori and Lucy, Cherry and Plum, Maria, Dewy, even Allison. Fulton had known him for long enough to know what he was like. He'd had Sam on his side for the longest time, and even now, Sam behaved like that was all Miss Parker's fault; that it wasn't any of Lyle's fault. Sims, Hell, even Reston tolerated him; Brown acted all _Oh, if I'd had a son_ with him. Angelo even treated him with more regard than he did him, just because he was a fellow Empath. And Persephone acted like they were really old friends from way back, even if she was supposed to despise him. And Raines treated him like he really was his son, in his own somewhat distant way, even though Frankie (and he) knew damn well he wasn't.

And now this with Debbie. It just wasn't fair. It couldn't possibly _be_ fair. He'd even met his sister, _his_ sister, his little Ursula – and _he_ hadn't.

It wasn't fair.

He reached for the remote control and switched the damn television off, and stood up.

The only two who hadn't bought his little game was Miss Parker and Sydney. It was strange to think of it that way, but he supposed it was true, also. Oh, and then there was Jarod. Yeah. But then again, how could Jarod ever believe a word he said, or trust anything he did, when he'd killed his brother, Kyle.

.

"I want you to leave. Leave town. I don't care where you go, I just want you gone!"

It was late. Very late, in fact. He might have been home, sleeping, but instead he'd driven around to Lyle's. He'd had something to tell him, and he'd just said it.

"And go where?" Lyle asked, not at all upset. "This is my home. I was born here. You won't even let me die here?"

Cox laughed. Too loudly, given the hour, actually. But he couldn't stop himself from doing so. So he laughed. It was really one big joke to Lyle. Everything was! Everything in life. He might have been a fucking robot, instead of a living, breathing person, Frankie thought. Or maybe that was a joke in itself. The fact that he was alive. "You're not Theodore Parker!" he spat. "This isn't your home! You weren't even _born_ in Blue Cove!" If he was being unjustly cruel, he just didn't care.

"No, I'm just… an experiment," Lyle replied, more coldly than calmly. "William when he realised what a mistake it was allowing Theodore to be sent away like that, decided that he'd just have to get him back, and thus devised a plan to do so. A plan which involved creating me. I was to replace Theodore, when the time came. Raines would send some people – a team, let's call them – to Africa, to stage a rescue effort. Only, that wouldn't be real. The real reason they would go would be to leave me in Theodore's place, and take the child back to America with them. Back home.

"Only, I didn't turn out quite as expected, so they had to go for the real thing, rather than Plan A. I wasn't up to Theodore's standards, so they dropped me off somewhere out of state, and forgot about me. Right… that was until Theodore _died_! And suddenly, they needed me again! But it took longer than anticipated to locate me, and I'd… not turned out as anticipated.

"It was hurtful. A massive let down. But I would have to do." He glared at Frankie. "I was born here! I was born in Blue Cove, and don't you tell me where I belong and don't belong! I belong where I want to belong, just like we all do! I'm not some kid or some damn fool who's going to stand here listening to you talking utter rubbish and take it for serious! I have as much right as you do to exist, and don't you turn those eyes on me!"

A smile turned the corners of Cox's mouth. "I've never killed anyone by choice," he said, quite normally, without a big fuss.

"Get off my doorstep!" Lyle told him darkly.

Frankie grinned. "Don't say I didn't give you your chance," he replied, and nodded, turning and going back down the steps the way he'd come minutes earlier, back into the night.

.

When Cox had gone, driven away in his car, Lyle went back inside and closed the door. He wasn't even annoyed by the cold, he just didn't feel like going for a walk anymore. He'd have gone before Frankie turned up, but then he just didn't feel like it.

He didn't like to spend a lot of time feeling bad about stuff, because he knew it didn't help anything, but he still did, from time to time. Actually, a lot more than he really wanted to. But maybe that wasn't true; maybe he liked to feel shitty about stuff because it made him feel like something, almost important even. How shitty was that? Because there were still good things in life, and so many of them, but he chose not to see them, and instead focus on the crappy things.

Just because a lot of lame, crappy things had happened in his life was no excuse, he told himself. But hadn't Frankie just insinuated he didn't belong anywhere! Like he was some freakin' alien. And even aliens belonged somewhere, if they wanted to. Like all living things. So didn't he deserve to belong somewhere, too?

He sat down in the hallway, feeling down. He might have been consoled that there were people who still cared about him, but he wasn't. He'd only brought them hurt and a lot of bad things. And maybe those things had always been out there, and maybe they'd have been hurt anyway, even if he'd never come along, but he had, and they'd had someone to point their fingers at, and it felt really shitty, especially when he was the one doing a lot of that pointing.

People lived, and learnt, and that was the way it was. But he never seemed to get better at it. At living, or learning. Or doing things right.

Maybe it would be better when he was dead. Maybe it really would. At first, it might hurt a little for those people who'd cared about him, and then they'd move on and it would just be… better.

_There's something to look forward to_, he thought. _They'll be able to smile again. Have fun, laugh about stuff. You'll be doing the world a favour by hurrying up and dying, even if they don't know it. You idiot._

Maybe it was easy to believe that, for some people, and maybe he'd have felt better to believe it, too, but he couldn't believe it. Everyone, somewhere, affected someone else's life; and everyone affected someone else when they died, for good or for bad. Nobody was forgotten. Nobody.

.

He sat on the step, had changed his mind about going back inside, just needed to be out, not inside, and let his thoughts return to Julie's card: a Get Well card, in fact. It had been nice of her, yes, and yes, he'd been helping her with her Japanese, but then he'd had to stop, he'd made up some _You know how it is. Life is busy, work is busy_ prattle, which she'd bought. How would one go about saying, _Sorry, but it's just that I'm dying, will be dead soon, or else I'd be perfectly happy to go on helping you_? He thought about the card – homemade – which he'd set down by the electric kettle sitting on the sideboard close by to the kitchen sink; and _damn_, did that kettle ever annoy him these days – it could never shut up!

Julie had come so silently up the steps, he thought she might have materialised on the top step, just stepped out of her house, stepped out her front door, onto his front step. Like magic. Julie Halliwell.

He'd only seen her because he'd looked up, for just a moment, debating with himself whether he'd really properly looked in the little, tiny, squishy mailbox thing allotted to his townhouse by number – his was No. 6 – and there she'd been, standing on the step, still in her high school garb. And he'd said, forgetting all about the mail, "Hello, Julie."

"Hello," she'd greeted brightly, and put out a hand, handing over an envelope. "Um, this is for you. But- I have to go. I'm going to the Movies later. With my Mom. So, I have to go get ready. In case, you know, there's any boys." She'd smiled. Yes, she was into boys; no, she'd clearly, safely, one hundred percent, gotten over her crush on him. (Thank goodness.) "My friend, Anila's, coming too. It'll be cool. Anyway, have a… you know… a good evening."

"Yes. You have a good evening, too. And enjoy the film. Tell your mum I said 'hi.'"

"Will do," Julie had nodded, leaving already. She sure had been in a hurry.

"Bye, Julie," he'd said, to see her off on her way.

"Bye!"

Then she'd gone.

He hadn't remembered about the mail. That was when he did, just at that moment – and decided he couldn't really be bothered going over there in the dark to check. Not really. At all. He'd rather have been anywhere, actually. He'd rather have been where Emily was, even if he didn't know where that was. And then, just because, and because thinking of Emily had made him think of the children – the children, the children – he felt rather like crying. And, because he had no reason not to, he did just that.

.

Miss Parker was sitting in her back garden, feeling in a strange mood, maybe a bit down, a glass of champagne in hand and the bottle placed neatly beside her on the equally as neat grass, when Harmony and Ethan came around the side of the house.

She began by saying, "I don't recall giving you permission to come onto my property," and, by that time, she'd stood and turned about, and she'd obviously seen that it wasn't who she'd though it was – they weren't who she'd imagined them to be – and fallen silent.

For an idle, glancing moment.

"Oh, it is you," she said, next, quite deadpan, in a possible attempt at humour. The bottle of expensive _Yes, it's really from France_ champagne had not moved from where she'd planted it, had not miraculously leapt into her free hand, and now looked in danger of being knocked over sideways by her foot.

"Mind that, won't you," Ethan said, with a nod, and she looked, and offered a shrug, but didn't come any closer.

"Does your companion have a name, go by any aliases, dare I say, any pet names, that you might like to share?"

"Harmony," Harmony replied, for herself.

"Harmony's not… She's a friend of the family," Ethan said, almost wincing. How to explain, exactly?

"I'm your mother," Harmony said next.

Ethan wheeled around, a look of shock on his face. What the-! For being a writer, the woman sure didn't come across as though she'd ever heard of subtlety, nuance, sensitivity.

"Is that the case, Harmony?" Miss Parker asked, inches, moments away from slurring all of her words together into one big blob of… something. All of her emotions.

"That is," Harmony agreed.

Miss Parker laughed. A humorous laugh, actually. "In that case, where have you been all my life, mother?" she burst out, still with that laugh in her voice, still laughing.

"I have been travelling abroad, stricken with a foul illness that would not allow me to return, nor to recall my past. As I am now in somewhat of a state of repair, I find my memories returning, bit by bit, and tonight, I thought of you. So here I am."

Parker tilted her head, considering Harmony's words. "You do have her eyes," she granted.

Ethan felt a bubble of annoyance at the two of them, at this little game they'd started, at their complete and utter lack of seriousness, but then Miss Parker said, "It took you long enough. Though, I imagine you shan't be staying long. Fear of persecution, imprisonment, torture, et cetera, et cetera. And that's no joke, madam, these people that I work for, work with – dangerous types!" Then she added, on a more serious note, "You look good for your age. I'm impressed. Hopefully, one day, when I'm your age, I'll manage to look half as good as you do now."

Ethan frowned, now more worried than annoyed or upset. What was she talking about? Hopefully? There was no 'hopefully' about it. She wasn't even that old. Fifty-one. No way was that old old. No way in the world. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, or whatever it was called. All of these possibilities raced through his mind at near to warp speed.

"Maybe you should come inside," she suggested. "I'll bring the bubbly." Then she laughed, and bent down to pick up the bottle of champagne.

.

"Frankie was by earlier, just had to tell me the whole sorry tale himself," she's saying, as she walked ahead of them into the kitchen. "Felt a bit bad, actually, for being so short with," here, she tossed her head, _You know_, "but I told him, 'Don't sweat it, Frankie.' Frankie. I called him _Frankie_. Not _Cox_, not _you_, not _creep_. Frankie. He must be growing on me. I've mentally upgraded him to the ranks of _Regular human, worthy of a name_ status. When did that happen?" She shrugged, plonked the bottle down at the table. "And wasn't it just a _hoot_! But I can see you're all just dying to spill the guts on your own news. Go ahead. Be my guest." She leant back against the table, waiting.

"We're just visiting family," Ethan replied, "there's really nothing more to tell. Save Harmony's news."

"Oh, yes. Mother's news. I think it should interest you, then, Mother dear, to know that my brother, your son, Ethan's older brother, is quite dead, and the person you may think is your son, is, in fact, not your son at all. He's something Raines cooked up, and in no way similar to you, my dear," she told Ethan, with a nod of courtesy. "Something different. For an altogether different purpose. In fact, true to his nature, a rather sinister purpose. The Experiment was to be my real brother's replacement, when Raines sent a team over to Africa to stage a botched rescued effort whilst really replacing one child with the other and recovering my real brother from the Africans' hands.

"The Experiment is quite talent-less, in fact, he had no real talent for anything, even for being a human being, which he was born as. My real brother, on the other hand, had had a lot of talent; talent Raines had wanted to keep for himself. But it didn't work, alas." She narrowed her eyes; the dash of dramatic suspense. We know something's going to come next, and we know it's not going to be good, but we just don't know what. Yet…

"The Experiment was abandoned, a failure, and sent away to work on assimilating into the human race. A feat at which it failed, even. Spectacularly, I might add."

"I hope you're not going about calling him that to his face," Ethan said.

She shook her head; of course not. "_It_," she hissed. "_It_, not _he_."

"That's a classic," Ethan replied sarcastically. "He sure looks like a he to me."

"Well, that's because that's the way Raines made him. He is a he, but only because Raines made him one."

"Gotcha, captain."

She made a face. "This is serious! I'm sick and tired of that _freak_ parading around as my dead _brother_ – it's completely fucking _sick_!"

"Yes, you're right," Harmony agreed. "That is sick."

Ethan stared at her, confused as to why she was taking Miss Parker's side on this. Had she even met Lyle ever?

"Frankie's words, recounted from what Lyle told him himself! I don't lie about that shit!" Miss Parker hissed, throwing Ethan a special traitor's glare. How dare you take the 's side over mine! How dare you even!

"And now, suddenly, you trust _Frankie's_ word implicitly," Ethan remarked.

"On this, yes," she said.

"On this."

She laughed, rolling her eyes. "Oh, and he's your _fucking twin_, I suppose – he's trying to pass himself off as _your other half_! Is that it?"

Ethan shook his head, unimpressed.

"Oh, give it a rest, you little fucking idiot!" she snapped.

"Take your own advice, for once," he said, and walked out of the room.

She laughed the whole time; even when he'd left, and gone into the lounge room, she went on laughing, just went on laughing.

He sat down on the sofa, and listened to his sister's laughter. It wasn't how he'd imagined it happening.

.

The stars were clear, that night, through the Blue Cove gloom. Beautifully clear. He might have even thought so, had he not fallen asleep. It was cold, too, but he was sleeping, and not a bit cold. Things like that had been acting up, lately, his sense of temperature, memory, emotions, the way he'd normally have related to someone or something, to some specific incident or event. Right before he'd fallen asleep, he'd started to wonder why people even had names, why they took names, or were given names by whom they were given them, and the different names they'd take in different roles, different circumstances. It had confused him. He hadn't been able to work it out.

But right now, he wasn't really worried about anything. Maybe he was even dreaming. He did, sometimes. And sometimes, they were even his dreams.

.

Silvana was staying at her new place, instead of her dad's. She'd have to get used to it sometime, she'd reasoned, and that was what she was doing. Trying to get used to this strange, new place. She wasn't excited, she was worried, instead. Worried for her dad, her mom, her siblings, her family, her friends; for a lot of things, really. She was even worried about her job, at that point.

She thought about ringing, then decided not to. People would think she was losing it, becoming unhinged, she'd be making a pain of herself.

She hit the mute button on the TV's remote, and grabbed her cell phone out of its phone case attached to her black jeans. Maybe just one, tiny call. Just to wish Debbie _Goodnight_.

Debbie didn't pick up.

She put her phone away, disappointed. Debbie was probably upset. Maybe she'd ring her later, though, when she'd finally decided she really did need someone to talk to, and who better to talk to than her best friend.

For good luck, Silvie crossed her fingers behind her back. Then she got up and switched off the TV, going to her bookcase and looking for a good book to read.

.

It was very early in the morning when she woke, not even really morning, it was that early; maybe two o'clock. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, the book had dropped from her hands to land on the bare floor in front of the couch – carpet was a potential health hazard where her asthma was concerned, ever the picky one – and she now found she wasn't very comfortable, lying on top of it. Blinking open her eyes, she supposed she'd fallen off the couch, in fine form, of course, and all without waking. What had woken her, in the end, was the feeling like she'd had a bucket of water thrown over her.

When she looked, she found she was perfectly dry. So, she'd been dreaming. Nice dream, hey? Or maybe not. Who'd dream about something like that, in reality? Hadn't she promised herself a nice dream?

She leapt to her feet. She had somewhere to be, she sensed. That was where she was headed. Pausing only to open, and then shut the front door, she went off, trying to shake off her tiredness. She didn't need a car wreck, she needed to get to where she was going.

.

They'd not spoken after the row, she'd just muttered something about an upstairs room, the guest room, and there being a couch – the one he'd been sitting on – and then she'd gone off, to do her own thing, he supposed. He'd told Harm, who'd been standing, looking sort of useless, in the hall, that she might as well take the guest room; he'd do fine enough where he was.

He'd stayed up to watch some telly – on mute, of course – and had switched the TV and the lights off some time around one. The house had been silent, just as it had been since Parker had lost her temper with him, and he'd sighed and decided it was time to get some rest, whether he liked it or not.

It had taken long enough to get to sleep, but he'd consoled himself by reminding himself that once – a very long time ago – a family had lived in this house, and once, to the outside world – and to their small daughter – they'd almost looked the most perfect family ever. Once, a child had been happy in this house. Before all of the bad things had come at the family like a pack of hungry wolves – or coyotes, zombies – and brought with them that sickness called Unhappiness and Disappointment and Loneliness.

Before all of that, yeah, the kid had actually smiled once or twice.

.

Silvie was knelt on the step, trying to shake him awake, talking in that voice you'd find someone might use on a little kid, "You can't sleep out here, sweetie. It's awf'lly cold and wet. It's raining, baby. You gotta wake up and come inside."

The stars had gone away – had they ever really been there, to begin with? – and now the sky was dark and cloudy and dark, sort of dark, it was mucky, too, not properly dark like out someplace where the air wasn't as messed up with chemicals and such.

Silvie was wearing a jacket, but her jacket was wet. Her hair, too; wet. She was shivering from the cold. "Come inside."

"I'm sorry," was all he said. And they went inside together.

.

The storm outside was loud, but it was still louder inside. Inside, the loudness still hurt more than the loudness of outside, of the storm.

He didn't say so, though, he kept all of that quiet, inside. He'd never say so, to this girl, worrying after him so much, as she was; his daughter, no wonder, and a good kid.

_Woman_, he corrected himself. She was a woman now. How quickly the years had seemed to go by, from here, looking back.

The heater was on – she'd put that on – and it hurt to be around it, to be so close. Not the heat, just everything else. It was the upgrades, of course, they didn't mash well with things like that, these days; they'd decided that, no, they didn't really feel like playing nicely, thank you very much.

He felt ill. Very much like being ill. Perhaps he needed to find someplace… a hole? Perhaps he could go there, to get away from it all. Then, when he died, he could stay right there and be quite peaceful. At least, his body could. _It_ could be peaceful.

He supposed he was being stupid, bitter, stupid; when had he ever done right by it, in reality, really done right by it? He hadn't, that was the point. He'd always thought, well, it would always just be a given, always pull through, as long as he _wanted_ it to; he'd always thought, if he wanted it enough – needed it – it was a sure thing. But shit didn't work like that, and he should have known. He should have been more responsible. A grownup.

Along with feeling mightily like throwing up, he felt a bit like laughing, too. A grownup! Wasn't that a joke and a half, eh? He might've been grown up, but he wasn't a grownup. An adult would have handled things… just differently.

Sydney was a grownup. Issues aside, he wasn't one to think he could do things he really couldn't. He lived in the real world, not some _Oh, this sounds quite nice_ made up world. His choices were informed by reality, not by some lame wishing for things to be differently. The stuff he did worked because he did it right, from the start. It worked because it began with a reasonable expectation to work, and it was followed through with due care and consideration; not by crossing one's fingers and going, _Oh, come _on_! This _one_ time, please just work! Please!_

He needed to be more grown up, he concluded, and stood up to get a glass of water. It probably wouldn't do anything for the splitting headache he had, but it would be doing something, wouldn't it. Not just whining or whinging or sitting there thinking, over and over, _This sucks. This really sucks._

He was in the kitchen for ages, he'd decided to put the water on, whilst he was in there, and came back with a hot tea for Silvie – something with chamomile in it, among other things – and when he offered her the mug, not shaking much at all, Silvie felt a bit better. She even smiled.

After she'd had her tea, he told her about the otters he'd seen once in the zoo, about how they lived in the wild, say, like in Canada, where she'd once lived, too, or in Europe, and she fell asleep even though he could have gone on talking about otters, but he didn't.

She'd rested her head on his shoulder, and he didn't really feel like waking her by moving; he didn't even much feel like moving. He felt like a parent, or at least a good friend. It was pretty neat, headache aside.

It was too hot. The heater was still going. If he got up, he'd wake Silvie. He didn't smile, he knew it wasn't really the cleverest move, but he didn't care, so he turned it off… with just his mind. And the upgrades.

.

Miss Parker sucked in a deep breath, reaching a hand to her head in horrible, horrible pain, but the moment she'd come awake enough to register it, it had seemed to flit away, like it had been nothing more than a dream. Her heart hurt. Well, her chest hurt. It felt too tight, and her heart was hammering as though there was no tomorrow. She tried to make it slow down, calm down, but even though she tried really hard – Molly had been able to control her heartbeat – it didn't work. She wondered why, briefly, and sat up, about ready for a glass of water.

As she was walking to the door, in the dark, she thought how mean she'd been to Ethan, in truth. It wasn't even about Frankie. Frankie could do what Frankie liked, the same as he'd always done. Did she care? No. Not really. It was about the fact that she was Ethan's sister, and he'd been expressing his concern for her, and she'd just shut him right down, like he was just some person – someone with no right whatsoever to be concerned for her. It had been a lowly thing to do, she thought, now. _What a bitch._ Not that that was any excuse. It was nothing _but_ an excuse. _I'm a bitch, that's how I operate. Get used to it, or get lost._ It wasn't even a good excuse, to be honest. It was way clichéd, and nothing she should ever have used on her brother. Period!

She felt like such a jerk. Which hurt. But worst of all was she really didn't know what to do next, where to go next? How to try to remedy the damage she'd caused by getting all… all stupid. Not everybody who cared was a liar – some of them really did care. She told herself this, even though she couldn't help feeling cheated and angry and sick at the thought, and she damn well knew it was true, too, but those old feelings would be hard to shake. Damn hard.

_So, what's the hold up? What's takin' ya, lady_? She knew she had to start sooner rather than later, or risk losing the only family she had left in this world. No way! No way was she losing Ethan! No way in Hell.

She went downstairs, got a glass of water, and stopped in at the lounge. Ethan was asleep. She went to get a blanket. The house had central heating, but it really was storming out there, and blankets always seemed to make people feel better when it was cold and rainy and gloomy-feeling. That was her experience of it, anyway.

Maybe a hug would have gone down better, but she wasn't too keen on waking Ethan up when he was asleep. As much as she cared for him, she didn't know how he'd react, not with all the traumas he'd been through. She didn't feel like getting hit, and even more than that, she really didn't want to hit anyone back.

She went back upstairs, after that, looking to see if the light in the guest room was still on – it wasn't – and back to her bedroom, back to bed, to sleep. She had a few hours left still. It was better than nothing.

.

The woman was standing on his doorstep. Silvie had since gone out – Debbie had called at seven, invited her someplace – so there'd been no-one else to get the door; no-one to lie and say he was out, sorry, and he'd not been up to pulling any Empath hoodoo, not that he'd thought it would work on Cathy for a second. She'd see right through it, from start to finish, he was sure. Mel would have; she was Mel's mom. She was his mom, too, but… well, it was different between Cat and Mel, always had been, to how it was with Cathy and he. It just was, from the beginning, and even if he'd wanted it otherwise, it would probably never happen.

Whether or not Harmony remembered everything from before, from Catherine's days, didn't come in to it. She felt what Cathy had felt back then, he'd heard it in her voice on the phone. Even if she didn't know why she felt what she did, or justified it by alternate means, by what she'd heard of his character from Jarod, or someone else, Margaret, anyone, it changed nothing. He'd always still be who he'd been back then, in her eyes; she'd always still feel that… Could he even call it animosity? He wasn't sure. He got the door, anyway.

And there she was.

Alone.

He didn't know what to say to her, whether or not to tell her she looked nice, well, that sort of thing, or how much… how much some of them had missed her, or… He was stuck. He felt stupid. Even Bobby would have known what to say. Granted, he'd have probably hugged her, wouldn't have waited or asked or anything, would have been excited beyond words, but he wasn't Bobby. Maybe he'd grown up. Just a little. Or maybe he'd gotten colder, like Mel, and maybe things never stopped hurting, if he let them, so he didn't; pretended not to. How like Mel.

"You want to come in?" he said, finally. "You're Em's friend, right."

"Yes," Harmony agreed, a little coldly, and moved toward the door. He stepped out of the way to let her in, and shut the door again, feeling instantly uncomfortable. (Bobby, true to form, felt very happy.)

In the kitchen, he asked her if she'd like anything. "Can I get you something? Coffee? A glass of water?"

"I didn't come here to make friends," she replied, as coldly as before. "I came here to get some answers."

"Answers."

"I'm guessing you know who I am," she continued. "I'd like to know who you are, if you don't mind. It seems fair."

"Sure. Okay. Well, the planet I'm from, originally, is called…" He frowned. "It doesn't translate well into any of the human languages, actually, so maybe we'll just forgo that minor detail-"

"Is that funny? Do you think you're being funny?" Harmony scowled. "I'm not amused, in case you've failed to note. In the least. I asked for a straight answer-"

"Harmony, baby," he interrupted, "I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know. The reason is, and I can tell you very well the reason, I don't feel like having it thrown back in my face later, along with: 'You deceitful, ungracious little liar!' Are we on the same page here?"

Harmony laughed, an expectedly angry laugh.

"Oh, now you find that funny, do you?" he asked, though he knew full well she did not.

"No, you _fuck_, I do not find it funny!" she snapped.

"A fine start to our relationship, don't you think! You, so… happy, and expressive. Me, so… happy. Too." He smiled, then dropped it. Too creepy, too fake. Way too Kyle on a bad day.

"Harmony, I don't know what to say," he added, at last.

She was fuming silently.

"You'll not even have, ah, a biscuit, or something… They're not the store-bought sort; Silvie made them. They're nice. She's okay at that. Making things, you know. She, um… it makes her happy. When people appreciate something she's done. In the moments when they're happy to have known her." He nodded. "I can see you're not interested. Best to change the topic, eh? Do so. Thank you."

He sighed. "Harmony, really. Alright, you ask your questions, and I'll see what I can do about answering them. Truthfully. How's that? No?"

She glared at him dirtily. "Is Missy telling the truth? My son's dead, and you're just some… some aberration, some _thing_? You stole something of my son's so you'd be able to convince Missy you were him? Tell me. I want to know!"

He refrained from rolling his eyes. "Alright, I'll go easy on you, Mum." He said _Mum_ like she was someone else's mom, anyone's mom; just a mom. "Point 1, A, whatever you want to call it: Miss Parker's name is not Missy; it's not even her nickname, to those of us who aren't Jarod. For the rest of us, she goes by Parker, if you're a friend. If not, then you'd best stick to Miss Parker for your own safety. The correct answer is, in fact, Mel. That's not her full name, mind you, but that's all I'm willing to say. If you happen to remember the rest, good for you. You won't be hearing it from me.

"2: Is your son, Theodore, dead? Yes. It happened a long time ago. For your own sake, you should move on.

"3. 2b?" He shrugged. "For the purposes of this discussion, I'm just a person, and I'd prefer if you didn't refer after me as 'some thing.' At least, not in my company. But, it's entirely up to you. If you'd rather, then by all means, just don't expect me to be all smiley-happy-best-friend-forever about it.

"And 3: Yes, I do have some things of your son's. But only one thing I can give you, short of… Trust me, you don't want to see something like that. It's not nice." He fiddled with the bracelet of beads on his right wrist, and finally offered it for her to take. "Here. If you want it, it's yours."

"That piece of junk was my son's?" she said. "I didn't give it to him. Where did he get it?"

"I don't know. I assumed it had been given to him by one of his carers, back in Africa. It's to protect against ill intentions that might pass through from the spirit world into our world, or something like that… I dunno. It sounds cool, though, don't you think?"

"No."

"Obviously not."

"The spirit world!" she repeated, incredulous.

"Sure. You know. Like, um… Miss Parker hears Voices. The, um, voices of the dead, or whatever you want to call them. Earthbound spirits, the non-physical imprints of people who used to live… Whatever. Sometimes, if you're," he sighed, "if you're so inclined, say, you have a mental illness, or you've experienced a recently traumatic event, you're suffering from some form of grief, confusion, hurt, disillusionment, you might be more suggestible to… to certain energies that… Forget it. Um… It's an Empath thing." He shook his head. "Energies." He rolled his eyes, amused at himself for thinking he might be able to explain something like that to Harmony, who clearly wasn't up for listening to what she surely considered pure twaddle.

"The point is, the, ah, this carer, obviously… Well, I like to think, they felt some form of… affection, would you say, towards Theodore, that he wasn't all alone in that place, there was someone who cared, on some level, about something more than… than how well he'd completed this SIM or that SIM, someone who cared about him as a living, breathing person."

He frowned, checking himself. "'I like to think…'? That's cute, Lyle. Jeez, you're just a regular bundle of cute, today." He shook his head. "It sounds like something someone who had a bit of a heart would appreciate, I mean. Ignore the," he waved a hand about, gesturing to himself, "talking… to myself… thing. Horrible, horrible habit. Do you want them?" He offered her the bracelet, again.

"I don't think I want them now that you've had your grubby hands on them, no," Harmony replied darkly.

He left them on the table. "If you change your mind, you know where to find them," he told her, ignoring the urge to hyperventilate. He could do without them for half an hour, one, two, a couple of hours, right? What was the big deal? (Bobby wanted to put them back on, chew his nails, sit down in a corner, do something… the dishes maybe. He could just feel it. He refrained from all four.)

Harmony had another question for him. "Did you know who she was, when you met?"

"Who… who was?" he asked.

"Emily," she growled. Emily was like her own daughter, and very dear to her heart, and her tone made it very clear she didn't appreciate his attitude where the girl was concerned.

"Emily, well," he looked out the window, onto the parking lot. "If what you're asking is, Did I know she was Margaret and Charles's daughter and Jarod and Kyle's sister?: No. I did not," he told her, looking away from the window, back to her face. "I knew… she was Mel's friend. Someone she would have trusted with her life; someone she loved like a sister. Beyond that," he shook his head. "She liked the environment, all of the… the connections in that, between… all of it; singing, running… with Mel. She'd learnt to play a bit of the piano. Mel had helped. She liked, um… she liked having a friend. She was a nice person who'd… who'd… Look. That's the past. But that's what I knew."

"You knew about her past, then. Before they found out and asked that it be dealt with promptly?" Harmony questioned, an edge to her voice.

Slowly, he realised that he'd said more than he'd needed to, more than he rightly ought to have. Emily would have told her part of the story of how they'd met, and maybe she'd heard other things, and all of it had gone together to make up the whole story.

"Yes. I did. That's not the issue here, though, is it? So I didn't have a plan, back then. You know, plans don't always work out as intended. You do know. You do." He shook his head. "I'd needed the job, as… as you do. It had been something I'd be able to do with a reasonable level of competency, so I'd gone for it. I didn't… foresee happening what happened, it just happened. I didn't have a plan, for when it did. Is that… is that such a crime? Of course I knew what they wanted, what their intention was, and I didn't think it worth it to fight them on it, for either of our sakes.

"Life was… a bit of a mess, in my… in my mind, at that point. Maybe I just wanted to… to live. Away from the continual scheming and – all of that! Just… live, like everyone else did. Does." He put a hand to his head. "Why must I justify myself to you? I don't hear you justifying what you did to Mel, now do I? Not a word of it, no. And that's not what I'm asking for, either! Not for me, not for Mel! I'm just a _person_, Harmony. When it really comes down to it, I'm just a person. Bad choice of words, but I'm not perfect, I don't have perfect foresight, I'm not great at planning out my whole life ahead of me and following that plan to the 'T.'

"I have goals, like anyone does, and a rough idea of how I'm going to achieve them; how I'm going to go about achieving them, but the future is variable, and any plan that I make now, or in any number of years gone by, is going to have to flex and adjust to those variations. It's not a perfect thing. My goals mightn't change, but the way I go about them has to. Do you see that? Of course you do. Could you say something? I feel like I'm the only one talking here, and it's not right. Say something." He tilted his head. "Harmony?"

"You should have done something," Harmony said angrily. "If you were half as devoted to Missy as you make out, then you'd have done something. Emily was her friend!"

"Done what, hmm?" he asked. "Do you think T-Corp wouldn't have tracked her down, if I'd found a way to get her out? Do you think, for one second, that they'd have been okay with that – with her failure to complete her mission? The only reason she got away, in the end, was because they all thought she was dead. Us, them, all of us. To them, she was dead for good. Nothin' to do about it, then, is there? Dead is dead. They couldn't come get her, not after all that time. Couldn't just bring her back, lickety-split. Not how it works, hon."

He made a face. "And risk throwing away my chances of eventually coming to work for Blue Cove? Where Miss Parker was? Are you fucking kidding me? Huh? Shit no! Not in a million years. That was, as they say, the plan! Mel's twin: got ya! That was the plan, and there was no messing with it. Not from my end. I wasn't anyone in particular who could say 'yes' or 'no' as to that end. Right down to the end, you've gotta stick with it. That's all I did. Don't tell me you'd have done differently, Harmony, because I know otherwise. Right down to the end, you stuck with the plan. Right? Get the kids out. That plan."

Harmony shook her head, more than annoyed that he was using a past she barely remembered a dozen bits of pieces, however vague, of, against her. "And I failed," she reminded him. "And so did you."

"Right."

"I just don't buy that you'd really think it would work, that all of your hard work would eventually pay off. You really thought Missy would just fall into your pocket like that? I don't think so. I don't think Raines had you fooled for a second."

"Right, because it was Raines's plan. All along, it was William's plan. Who's to say it wasn't yours, Harmony? Who's to say he wasn't doing as you'd have wanted? Let her have a brother, a sibling, at least; someone to feel close to. And if he'd thought, once or twice, about using the situation to his advantage, or in his favour, then that was just how the tables turned. But who's to say it _was_ his idea?

"Maybe it wasn't even yours. Maybe it was mine? Bobby's? I love Mel. Maybe it was my plan all along, and I only wanted Raines to think it was his idea, he was the one in charge. Maybe I was pissed that I never got to spend any time with you or Mel, back then, that I didn't get the perfect family. The rich dad, the caring mum, the cute sister. So it wasn't all it was painted to be, in reality, but do you think a kid sees that? When they've been hurt, do they see that maybe it's not all roses out there, at all. Maybe it's a hard, cruel world, if you look at it from the right angle." He shook his head. "I guess you didn't think of that."

Harmony's glare was unrelenting; not for a second did she flinch. She'd believed him capable of it, all along. He saw it in her eyes. She wasn't impressed that he'd finally came out with it, but she was reassured (almost congratulatory at herself) for having been right all along.

"Lighten up," he told her. "You should be happy. Your suspicions stand confirmed. Congrats, you're an excellent judge of character. There aren't words for how terrible I am. I'm just… so bad. Always have been, always will be. Happy face, yeah?"

She shook her head. "You could have won her over, if you'd gone about it the right way, starting with Emily. They'd been friends. It would have been the perfect avenue, the perfect deception."

"Nah. Then she'd have been there – her friend, from before I came along – and she'd have taken too much of Mel's affection. It was just going to be me and her. Nobody else. Not Jarod, not Angelo, not her old friends. Not little brother, Mirage. Me: her twin. And certainly not some upstart little girl friend thing filled with thoughts of her own self-importance: 'Look at me, I went to boarding school. Look at me, at the super, important, top secret mission they've sent me on. Me!' No way. I was getting back at them all. At my parents, at the lot of you! At Raines. In a way, even at her. She'd never questioned it at all, the lies; not about the part that had counted, not about _me_! About Theodore. So it was only fair. Theo would have understood, I knew he would have. If I had to trick her into a few things, along the way, then what was the problem? No problem. No little friends! You should know, I'm not good at sharing stuff that's mine. And I was going to make sure Mel was mine.

"The fact that it didn't work out, in the end? Regrettable. Sad. I think I'll live. For a while." He laughed, and sighed. If that wasn't a lovely enough picture for Harm, he was sure he could find something else to dazzle her with.

It looked to have done the trick. She had on a most disgusted, sickened, angered expression. She wasn't saying anything just yet. Or perhaps she was just working through the possibilities open to her: how to kill him and make it look like an accident, or suicide?

"Say, it's coming up to that time. You wouldn't care for a bite to eat, would you? I know a place; a diner that'll be open. We could talk some more over a coffee, or whatever."

"I don't think so," she replied, in utter disgust.

"No?" He shrugged. "It was worth a try, though, right?" He sighed. "Em's cute; she really is; I just don't see it working for us, in the long term. She's too obsessive. She obsesses over things. It has a way of getting under my skin, of reminding me just a little too much of myself. Not that, mind you, I consider her on my level. I should say, not to sound rude, we're not the same type of being, you know, our minds are set all… differently. She's a caring person. She gives love out, and it comes back to her. I'm the sort of person who just expects it to be there, waiting for me; who'll demand it without doing anything for it." He tilted his head from side to side, thoughtfully. "I'd just get pissed off at her, even if I thought, hey, maybe I'd give the kid a break, you know, we've got a couple of kids together, maybe it'll make a refreshing change, a bit of an update to the old image. But you know, if I fuck her up too, if I step too far over that line, you know who's going to be there to put me back in my place. Mmm, I know you do. Jarod. Am I right, or am I right?

"I already have that against me that I'm a bastard, a crazy, you-wouldn't-believe-just-how-fucked-up-in-the-head murdering, son-of-a-bitch – pardon me, Else – who not only took Kyle away from him, and tried to take Emily, too, for what it's worth – damn pain-in-the-rear, that girl is, sometimes – but the rest of his happy, _little_ family, too. Oh, and not forgetting that I continue to flaunt the law with hardly a consequence at all, despite my wicked, evil doings. Cute, huh? Ready to join the little hate club Jarod has going? It's for a good cause, and completely tax-free!"

"I'm glad you find this a joking matter," Harmony spat, "because I don't."

"Ask me, you don't you look so glad t' me," he replied.

"My, your powers of intuition continue to astound me!" she retorted in a mock _Wow! By golly!_ tone of voice.

He swallowed any ideas that he might have of laughing; Harmony hadn't meant it to be taken humorously. She'd give him one of those _Kill you with my eyes_ looks, and the ache in his head would only kick him harder for it. Yeah right, like he needed that.

It was really lucky she wasn't an Empath; she'd have guessed it right away. _Oh, poor you, does your head hurt? Well good, I hope it hurts more!_ Yeah, that'd just have him rolling in the aisles with laughter.

"Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here, Harm," he told her, deliberately going for the use of her nickname in hopes it would send her packing, fast. "What say we start over, try this thing a second time 'round?"

She shook her head, firm in her decision. "There's no need to show me out, I know the way," she said, and turned and walked away.

He didn't let it bother him what his mother now thought of him. It was for a good cause, as he'd said. Only the very best of causes, naturally.

He'd only heard the front door click shut behind her, she stood on the step now, poised for departure, looking out at the road, and the beautiful park that lay beyond, on the other side, when he had to run to the sink and throw up.

He pretended not to see the blood, pretended it didn't remind him of Brigitte, pretended not to remember her one wish, to find her sister, Cypriana, Reagan's aunt. He didn't pretend well enough. He knew what he had to do now. He'd have to find Cypri. She was a part of their family, now, and it wasn't right or decent to deny her that, her family. Hadn't he just been going on and on about how angry he'd felt, how vengeful it had made him, to be kept away from his own family?

Shakily, when he was sure the sickness had passed, he sat down on the floor, his back resting up against the cupboards under the sink, and stared at the table, where Julie's homemade card sat, in pride of place, in the centre of the tabletop; where Noah's beads now lay, all alone and cold.

_She's going to be hard pressed to think awfully of you, now, baby_, he thought. _Faced with a person like me, compared to you, little one, she's going to love you. She's going to miss you so, so much. The first time in our lives, baby. I'm happy for you, I really am. You can smile, right? You know how to? Mummy loves you._

He leapt up from the floor and threw up again. _Charming._

With his back to the door, he didn't see the two kids standing there, holding hands; the littlest one, about four, and the older one, a teenager already, seventeen but closer to fifteen in looks, the little one holding a small, plastic toy giraffe. He wasn't smiling at all.

The elder of the pair, Bobby, glanced at the younger, Noah. Tory. Tor. Bobby. Baby. Names were just names, just another form of label, though considered OK, considered on the same par as nice things like friends and affection, and family.

«Did you see her?» he signed, to the younger one. «Isn't she a sight? She's sure pretty.»

.

When Silvie got back in, Lyle was watching TV in the lounge with Tazu, she, dressed brightly in a sky blue summer dress with an air of '70s style about it and matching high heels. Silvie made a face and sat down on the other side of her father, shooting him a quick quiz, "What's this rubbish?"

It was rubbish, but Lyle wasn't about to agree. He felt sick, and he didn't feel up to taking a walk or driving anywhere, and just going and lying down and sleeping was beyond lame and crappy and pathetic, so he'd sat down to watch TV with Tahz, instead.

"Say, Tahz, how d' you feel 'bout dancin'?" he asked, ignoring Silvie's look. He still hadn't answered her question.

Tazu smiled, gesturing widely to her outfit. "Dancing is so cool!" she enthused.

"Then we're going dancing."

"Oh yeah!" she said, and Silvie shot her a particularly dark _Quit it with that Donna Noble does understated excitement_ voice already! Tazu smiled at her nicely.

"You can't dance with someone who's not there," Silvie said to Lyle, without looking at him, instead staring intently – as though by her thoughts alone, she could break the damn thing – at the television screen.

"I'm here," Tazu cut in, playing down the offence she'd felt at Silvie's _She's just dead_ tone.

"What are you talking about?" Lyle asked. "You can see her, I can see her. Sure she's real. Aren't you, Tahz?"

"Yes," she pouted.

He nodded. "Sure she is."

"Sure am," she said, only now playing the hurt card.

Silvie shot to her feet. "Fine!" she snapped. "I'll just be… Whatever! Somewhere you two aren't! Chatting to strange men on telephone sex hotlines, or whatever!" She crossed her arms firmly and left the room.

Tazu bit her bottom lip, looking excited. "She's so grown up!"

"Oh, I get that," Lyle agreed.

"So where are we going dancing?" Tazu asked.

"No idea. Is the park okay?"

"The park hasn't got music," she said, a little put out.

"You know what," he said, "the bowling alley across town, they do that dance thing on the second Saturday of the month, don't they? We could go there, if you'd prefer."

She beamed hopefully.

"Happy now?" he asked.

"Almost. I'd be happier if I wasn't dead, but you can't have everything, can you?"

"Come on."

"Okay, fine." She huffed. "Happy!"

He smiled, and put a hand to his head. It was hurting again. Worse than ever. "I think you're supposed to call in advance," he covered quickly. "That's what the flyer said, right? So as they know there'll be some kinda turnout, or else they mightn't run the thing." He nodded, with effort, and stood up.

Tazu frowned, and nodded, though she'd not seen the poster herself. She supposed it could have said that; it sounded logical.

"I won't be a moment," he told her, and walked to the door, crossing the hall in hardly any time at all and stepping into the kitchen. He closed the door behind him, and walked slowly to the benchtop under the cupboards, and snatched up the phone's cordless receiver. He felt ill again, and put the phone back down to plant a hand over his mouth. Great! And it had to happen when Silvie was around! Wonderful! Fantastic! Marvellous!

He quickly moved to the sink and stood taking deep breaths, trying not to be ill.

His cell phone rang.

He checked the called ID, hoping he'd not have to answer, hoping he'd be able to call whoever it was back later, but when he saw it was Emily, he picked up the call and turned away from the sink, leaning back against it, and tried to sound perfectly normal.

"Yeah, darl?"

"Why'd you lie to Harm?" Emily snapped, in her _Pissed off but restraining myself as best I can_ voice.

"Hey, it was for the good of the planet." He laughed, and immediately felt sicker for it.

"Shut up," she said. "Why'd you lie? You didn't have to say anything."

"Nuh-ah, babe, yes I did. You weren't there- here- you know what I mean. You weren't around. She weren't givin' you those eyes. Those _Say somethin', boy_ eyes. You know me, jus' gotta run me mouth. What t' you expect, hon? Me t'ave told her the truth an' made her feel like a real lousy mom to some kid she b'lieves she ain't never even met cos he's damn dead? Cute, babe. Damn cute. I ain't gonna do that. She's me mother. She got Mel to feel bad 'bout, as it is. Don't need more where that came from. Le's change the subject. Tell me how you are?"

"Pissed at you. You liar."

"Hey, don't knock it, sweet'eart. 'Times, lyin's the only option. Harm don't remember so much, so I weren't about to go re-freshin' her mem'ry, just li' that. Could be bad for her, could n'it. An' that ain't good."

"Have you been drinking caffeinated crap?" Emily accused, and he could just imagine her eyes narrowed in suspicion wherever she was.

"What?"

"Yeah, denial! Cos it works every time!"

"I'll call you back," he said, and hung up, placing the cell phone on the benchtop beside the other phone with a heavy sigh, and threw up.

"D' you ring?" Tazu asked, from the door.

"Yeah, love, I did," he lied, reaching for a glass quickly as though he'd just been about to pour himself some water from the tap and not chucking up… whatever.

She shrugged one shoulder, and went back to the lounge, to sit on the couch and watch TV, thinking about later, when they'd go dancing, and there'd be other people, dancing, too, and how exciting it would be.

He stared at the glass like he couldn't quite make out what it was, or what it was for, and tried to catch his breath, tried to think of anything other than the pain. That was when his epilepsy decided to pitch in on the effort, too, and he collapsed to the floor.

.

Miss Parker hadn't hugged them when they'd left, she'd barely said goodbye, but she'd made sure to tuck some cookies away in Harmony's handbag when no-one had been looking. Homemade. She hoped they would suffice as an apology, or at least the beginning of one.

Putting away the bottle of scotch she'd been about to pour herself a glass of, she left to get any early (early!) night.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Tazu was smiling. She liked dancing. She wasn't always happy, but she was tonight. When she'd said the only downside she'd been able to see was being dead, she'd lied, in a way. What she'd really have liked was for Chiyo to be there with them, and to see her friend smiling. Even if Chiyo really had moved on, as Lyle had suggested, she wouldn't be satisfied until she knew for _sure_.

As if reading her thoughts, Lyle stood up when she came over – she'd been dancing with a nice young man who'd introduced himself as Chris – and said quietly, "I've never tried… to find someone that way before, but that's not to say it's not possible. How do we know, until we've tried. Perhaps I could try."

She shook her head. "You're not well enough," she told him. "I don't want you getting sicker. You haven't much time, now, and it would be unfair of me to ask you to give up any of the time you have left. In both your own case, and that of those who care about you also. I'd be taking away the time they have to spend with you, and all for what very may eventuate into a failed venture."

"Forget that, Tazu," he said. "I want you to move on. I really do. If finding Chiyo's going to help you do that, then it'll be worth it. Midori asked me something recently. She asked if I could help her say 'goodbye' to her mother… using my abilities, you know. I said 'no,' of course, but now I've given it a bit more thought, I think I might, after all. She just wants to say 'goodbye,' to hold her hand, you know. I won't show her what actually happened, of course, I'll make something else up, it'd be too much for her, otherwise, but I still want to do this for her, to give her closure. That won't make it real, but it might help her move on, too."

"What about Reagan and Silvie?" she asked. "Won't they be mad at you? They'll know what you did; they're Empaths, too."

"They don't necessarily have to find out, Tazu. I can block them."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I've much more practise over my lifetime than you might think."

She sat down on one of the chairs, resting her hands in her lap neatly. "I still don't think you should be doing anything that might cause you further harm. You should try to be happy in the few weeks you have left."

"I am happy," he told her. "In my own way. I'm as happy as I can see myself being. But I'm not going to give up life, give up on the normal things I'd usually do, just because I'm dying. I want to help you."

"I can't give my blessing on this, I'm afraid," she replied.

"It doesn't matter," he said.

She might have said more, but someone had just approached to ask if she might dance with them, and she'd hurriedly stood up, smiling, to answer them.

.

He must have thought about it, in the past, about the possibility of it, in the very least – and why wouldn't he have – but he'd never actually considered going through with it. It had seemed like so much of an invasion of… of privacy, that it wasn't right. But now, he considered, if it could help Tazu, then who would it really be hurting? Chiyo would never know who she'd been before – he didn't intent to tell her, after all – and even if it was a little like killing the mystery, it was also a little like giving hope to someone who'd really done without it for a long, long time.

Tazu had always maintained her reason for staying to be to help those other girls who'd been killed, those other girls and women who'd met their end just like her, and whilst he'd believed her partly, he'd also thought that that wasn't just it, that there was something else – something hidden, something quieter – at play.

The person who'd killed her would eventually die one day, too. But without someone to talk to, someone who could see her and talk to her, Tazu's 'life' wouldn't be much of a life at all. He had this one chance left in life to help her, and he wasn't giving it up just yet. Who knew, maybe they'd meet again one day when they'd both passed on and come back to live new lives? Maybe they'd even be good friends.

.

Silvie was busy with dinner when Emily rang him back, so he went out into the lounge to take the call. He should have asked her to come 'round, to meet her daughter, but he wasn't sure, still, on how safe that would be. Sure, Harm had come to see him, but she'd done that at her own risk, he hadn't been the one to say, Hey, why don't you come over.

"Yes," he answered merely.

"Yes!" she mocked, annoyed. "How come you've been such a stranger, lately? Don't Convergence partners have rights now? Don't I have a right to see you every once in a while?"

"That's not it," he replied. "Besides, I might be coming by soon."

"To see me and Hubertus?"

"Yeah, to see you both."

"And for some other reason, too?" she questioned.

"Look, you know I care about you," he told her.

"What I know is that every damn chance you get, you're dodging something else, another Goddamn confrontation with your 'human side'!" she said. "Emotional side, I should say. An' I'm gettin' real fuckin' sick of it! Real fuckin' sick. You're a fuckin' person, for God sake! A person! Try 'n act like one, for a change! Have some emotion!"

He shook his head, "Here's some emotion, darl. 'F you're just gonna stand there and give me that crap, then I'm gonna do this." He ended the call, and sat down heavily on the couch. Great! Just great!

Silvie came into the room.

He got up and walked over to her. "Why don't you call your mom later, huh? She'd be thrilled to hear from you. She'd be happy-happy-happy. Think about it. I'm going to bed."

"Without tea?" she asked, disappointed.

"I'll have something in the morning," he replied. "Or when I get up."

She looked sad. "But it'll be cold, and yucky."

"Cold don't mean yucky, sweet'eart, it jus' means cold. I can deal with that. Night, love."

"Goodnight, Daddy," she said.

He walked off.

She went back into the kitchen. Maybe when he went by to see Emily next time, she'd ask to come along. Maybe she could meet the others, too… and Hubertus. She thought she'd like that.

.

At about 11, she went to the door. Someone had been knocking, so she'd supposed she might as well get it, despite the late hour.

"Look, Silv, he mighta told you already what I said, but I want you to know I only said-"

"No, he didn't," Silvie interrupted. "He told me nothing."

Frankie made a face. "Well, okay. I wanted… I wanted him to get away from this place, okay. I thought he might get better, if he left. Or… even if he just spent some time with your mom and her lot. He's always stuck around because of Parker, and she… I'm not convinced she could care less, and he's hardly put in a lot of effort there, has he? He never stops lying, not even for a second. Come on, you've got to agree with me on that. It'd be better for him to get away. To see he can live without her. That she's not the only thing in the world, or the only person in his life."

Silvie frowned, tilting her head. "It doesn't matter what you say, or how mean you get, Frankie, you can't make him give her up," she told him. "You have no idea the things he's done for her, over the years, and he still feels like he should have been able to do better, should have been able to… give her a better life. He can't see life without her, and if you put it to him that way, he'd probably not want to at all. He'd probably not want to live. She's his twin. He'll say he can't help it. And maybe he can't. Maybe it's not just selfishness, and maybe it's not just about this feeling of owing her something, maybe it's because they're family."

"He's killing himself, this way, can't he see that?"

"He doesn't want to. Would you want to, if you lost Debbie?"

"I dunno. I reckon I pissed her off, really pissed her off, when I said those things I did about Lyle and her, a while ago."

"She hasn't said anything to him about it, far as I know. Maybe she's clued onto your motivations, Frankie. She's not a stupid girl."

He sighed. "Man! She's going to be pissed, if she has. Even more pissed than she already is now, I mean. That I could say those things to her for a reason like that."

"I doubt she'll be as mad at you as you think," Silvie replied. "She'll just be hurt, and sad. You really should have talked to her about the whole thing before rushing into things."

"I know. I'm an idiot."

"We all make mistakes."

He sighed. "I guess I better be going."

"Okay." She leaned forward to hug him. "Bye, Frankie."

"Same to you, Silv. Have a nice night."

"Yeah, thanks." She watched him walk back to his car before going inside.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

Silvie was woken at 5:30 in the morning by someone – her father – singing _Clementine_ in Spanish. She resisted the urge to throw something at him – a pillow – and conceded to herself that the boy lived in his own world sometimes. She smiled, and hummed along quietly.

She liked him when he was in a good mood. When he wasn't, sometimes, she didn't even want to know him, and sometimes, when he was in one of those moods, she felt as though she didn't know him at all. There was so much time between them, so much time they'd not been together, not been a family; so much time before she'd been born.

Sometimes, it frightened her what she didn't know, and at other times, she thought she would be better off not knowing.

"Good morning," she said finally, in her best Spanish accent. "How are _you_ feeling?"

"I'm alive," he replied.

She nodded. Yeah, he was. For now. She smiled. "What's on for today?"

"Work."

"Work, work, work."

"Mmm. Get you a coffee?"

"Be nice," she agreed.

"Wait just one moment." He hurried out of the room.

"Um, I think one moment's up!" she called out after him, with a frown. She started laughing, and sung Enrique Iglesias's _Maybe_, thinking about coffee, and, for some random reason – like in the movies – bagels.

She leapt out of bed and danced out of the room, now singing Hilary Duff's _Dangerous To Know_. (Her mind couldn't stay in one place. At the top of the stairs, it was _More_, the theme from Mondo Cane.)

In the kitchen, she opened the fridge door and looked inside. Lots of stuff, but no bagels. Not even any bread rolls. She rolled her eyes to the top of her head in thought. What would be open at this early hour, who'd be selling bagels at 5:40 AM?

She shut the door and spun around. "Hey, can we get bagels later?"

"Bagels?" Lyle asked.

"I want bagels."

He nodded, and passed her a mug.

She took a sip. "What's this? Where's the coffee?" she cried.

"Too early for coffee, love," he said.

"Boo, hot chocolate," she mumbled, and sat down at the table to drink the rest of her hot chocolate. "Thanks," she murmured. She rolled her eyes. "Don't ask! Don't ask!"

He smiled. "I'm not asking."

She hummed the start of _My Sharona_, wincing. "I think I'm gonna need sleeping pills," she huffed, rubbing her temples. "Stop thinking about that song!"

"Ezra, he sung that once. I was mean, I laughed."

Wide-eyed, Silvie stared at him. "Trust me, I'd have laughed too, if I'd been there!" she assured him. "I might have even fallen to the floor and rolled about in fits of laughter."

"Really?"

She nodded slowly, eyes wide. "Yeah. I must invite him to karaoke night one day."

"Do."

"I will!" She broke into _In A Moment Like This_, the song Chanée & N'evergreen had sung for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, representing Denmark. "We could do a duet together."

"In that case, I think we should invite Mel. She'd be happy to know Broots takes an interest in something other than computers."

"She doesn't know that already? After knowing the guy how many years?" Silvie asked, with a laugh.

"I think it's a little game she plays with him," he said.

"Ah."

"Silvie?"

"Yeah, Daddy?"

"You'll be alright, won't you? After I'm gone."

She frowned, taken off guard by the change of mood. "Yeah, sure," she said, still with that frown. "I mean, what else am I going to do? I'm gonna live. It's what we do. People. Stuff that's alive. Live. I'll be doing that."

"Do."

"Then I'll be having lots of babies so I can name one after you," she added.

"Oh, no, gosh no, don't do that," he told her. "Your mum- Mmm, some people go for stuff like that."

"You don't think it suits him?"

"No. No. In the context, no. Absolutely, resoundingly, no."

Silvie shrugged. Emily hadn't known, when she'd named him, where her baby would one day end up, or the complications that having that name would bring. "He changed his name, you know? They – someone, I imagine someone from the correctional service – said he should, on account of all the people who hated him and might want to… I don't know… make his life miserable."

"Did he?"

"Yeah. He said so in his letter. He's working in Michigan now. That girl, she ran away from home so… I guess so they could be a family. Her parents wouldn't even let her see him, in the end, and they'd forbade her from speaking to him on the phone or even writing. I guess she was pretty mad at them. They have a daughter. Her name's Toto." She made big, sparkly eyes, and smiled. "Gramps."

He laughed. "Yeah, sure."

"Believe it."

"Michigan?"

She nodded, sipping her hot drink briefly. "Yeah. As of two days ago." She stood up. "I'll get the letter," she said, rushing out of the room. When she got back, she passed him the letter.

He smiled and took it from her, glancing at it, but even with his reading glasses the words didn't want to make sense, though he could see that the handwriting was very neat and clearly understandable. "And he already got a job, so quickly."

"Cleaning," she said. Cleaning was hard work; not exactly fun.

"Silvie, I'm going to try to find someone later."

"Mmm?"

"Reagan's aunt, Cypriana."

"Brigitte had a sister?"

"She did."

"Okay. If she's family."

He smiled. "If I don't find her, will you… will you do something for me? Will you try and find her?"

Silvie frowned, blinking. "Yeah. You know I will, Daddy. Reagan's my little brother. I love him."

"Thanks, baby."

She shook her head. "We're family, baby," she told him.

"Family," he repeated. Yeah, because he was so great at that! At being family! No, not really.

He didn't tell her about Chiyo, or what Midori had asked of him. It would be her birthday present, she'd said. He wouldn't have to get her flowers or chocolates or any pretty, glittery stuff. The princess would settle for a little magic trick.

"Silvie, I love you."

She rolled her eyes, grinning. "I know _that_, Daddy!" she told him.

.

In the elevator, that morning, they were playing the radio. The muzak had gone. He went to get the stairs, instead.

.

So there was this guy who, if pressed, Miss Parker might have agreed, yeah, he could have been passed off as her brother, but he wasn't; he wasn't because her real twin was dead and her fake twin (though he might actually have been her brother, in reality) had some kind of lame, shitty complex about being her real twin that really pissed her off to no end. The point was, her twin was dead. The Chairman was wrong. This guy – Oliver, she'd been informed his name was – was not her twin. Her twin was dead.

Still, she agreed to meet him. It was just lunch, after all, and she wouldn't even be paying, which was totally like a bonus for her efforts, which was always a nice encouragement.

.

He left Heathrow Lounge, trying to convince himself he was really hungry. Broots had hung back, to hang out with the other techs – someone's party was up – so he was on his own. As soon as the glass doors closed after him, he felt… not better, but relieved. Somehow, even if it was only glass, the distance from all of those people was something helpful, something that allowed him to breathe a little easier.

Then it was just the silence. Quiet.

Ha!

And the loudness of everything else, everything that went straight to his upgrades, or his Empathic ability. Like that argument Cherry and Sims were having right now, on SL-8. Or the systems breach no-one had picked up on.

The peace hadn't lasted long. The second he'd got away from one lot, there were others. Just waiting.

Like Angelo and Persephone playing some board game – snakes and ladders, right – and Reagan lying on the couch, nearby, staring at the ceiling as though he had nothing better to do, or, if he did, like he wouldn't even be able to be stuffed, anyway. Why did everyone have to treat him like he wasn't as good as them, like he wasn't a proper person yet? He was eleven. Okay, so maybe it was just because they cared about him, but it was sickening. Like he'd never be able to make his own decisions – ever! I was worse than making a mistake and having to admit it afterwards, because he never got a say in anything remotely at all. It was like he wasn't even alive, like he wasn't a person but some dumb, stupid, shit robot that only knew how to do what it had been programmed to do – obey! Unflinchingly obey.

He didn't want to be a robot. He wanted to be what he'd been born to be. A human being. Man, why was that such a tall order?

It didn't matter any of the nice things he got (that some kid, somewhere else, could only dream of having), it didn't matter how many hugs or nice words people said to him, he wasn't _alive_!

Right now, that was the only thing he wanted.

To be alive, too.

To finally be a part of the rest of the world, a part of everything everyone else got to be a part of, day in, day out, living their lives. I want a life. I want to live. I shouldn't have to spell it out, to say it. It should be a given. I was born, why can't I have a life, too, now? Why can't I?

_Why can't the hungry people have food, and the homeless people have homes?_ Lyle thought. _Why does it always have to be another argument, another war, another person telling some other person, 'You're not like me'?_

_Because this is the world, baby. This is it. But none of us, none of us, can really see it. See it how it is, and not how we want it to be. It's not my world, it's not your world, it's our world, it's the _whole world_._

_Do you see it, too? Do you really? Can you live with that?_

Reagan sat up. He was going to go puke, or something. Life was so crappy. Maybe he'd just sit somewhere, on his own, and imagine some shit that wasn't real and get really bitter about that it wasn't, and go twisty or something because he really wanted it to be real, even though he knew it never would be. Disappointment = madness = lunatic = nobody cares = They have every right, you loser, you're fucking up their _perfect world_! = How dare you?

He laughed. _Yeah, fuck you all too! Damn losers! We're all crappy losers, in someone else's viewpoint. How fun is that? Oh, I'm just over the moon, over the moon, bud._

_Loser._

_You're not a loser_, Lyle thought, but it wasn't as though Reagan could hear him.

Sometimes, it really wasn't very nice, being a parent. Sometimes, it actually hurt.

He supposed Catherine had been hurt, too. He supposed he'd really, really hurt her. She hadn't really been all that bad. She might have found some way to kill him, then, but she'd just let him be sent away. Of course she'd had no idea of what they would do to him, then. Of course she hadn't. She was his mom. How could she, knowing that, have sent him away? She hadn't known, no. She'd just been hurt. That was all. It hadn't been a malicious act. No, all she'd done was what she'd seen as having been the best course of action, at the time.

Of course, he could tell himself that, and he could go on telling himself that. That it wasn't because she wouldn't have been handle the both of them, that it wasn't because she'd not wanted Mel to have anything to do with him, that it really, truly was – and was only – because she'd wanted what was best for him; she'd wanted him to have the best care, the best possible chance at life.

He could have told himself that. If, after that, she'd not written him off completely, just written him out of her life – out of Mel's life – completely, as though he'd never even existed.

If she hadn't forgotten him.

He sighed. _And look at me, look at me, now, Ma, doing so much _better_! What a joke! What a Goddamn joke!_

_Why did you have to go away? Why? Ma? We only wanted you to be our mother. We only wanted a _mother_._

He shook his head. Except, no, if she'd have been their mother, if she'd have stayed, and given up on the Plan, if she'd have said, no, I have more important things in my life, I have a family – would they have understood? No. No, of course not. If they'd never been through what they'd been through, they'd have been as naive as the rest of the world. They'd probably have hated her, even then.

_I don't hate you_, he thought. _So everyone, somewhere along the lines, gets hurt by something, by someone else, by something they've done, or even something they've done themselves, so, yes, I'm hurt, but I'm hurt for you, too. I'm upset for you, too. How can I be mad at you? How can I really, honestly hate you? You're just a person. You're a person, and so am I. So are we all. How can I hate you? In all honesty, I don't think I even hate Lyle. Yeah, so maybe I like to imagine there's times when I hate myself – but that's rubbish, isn't it. I don't hate myself, I don't hate you, I don't hate life. But I don't like all of it, either._

_There's a difference, right?_

She hadn't forgotten him. Not really. Not really. If the others all had, because they'd been offered no other option, she'd been the one who'd remembered. She'd always remembered, and though it hadn't seemed that way, she had. She'd never said anything to the others – to Mel, to any of her friends, to Margaret – because that wouldn't have been fair on them; even as unfair as it was, as unfair as it may have seemed not to tell them, it would have been even more unfair to tell them. Knowing something, and having no power, no avenue to change it, to do something about it, was the worst feeling in the world.

Because that was exactly how he felt right now.

And he couldn't do anything. Not a thing.

Except he could. He could risk all of their lives, all of their futures. He could do that.

But he wouldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't do that.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Catherine. I'm sorry I couldn't do better. I know it's what we're always supposed to strive for, to be better people, but I can't. I can't do it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

The world wasn't fun everyday. Some days – and there were always days like that – you'd really rather not be a part of it. Except – no choose. You were. You already were.

And that was living.

No way out.

And maybe there wasn't meant to be an easy exit, maybe all you were meant to do was learn, maybe you were meant to live. Even if it wasn't fun. Or easy.

He might have put down a counter argument that there was a limit to what one person could take, in order to see that the lives of those around them weren't as crappy as theirs, they could only take so much and then they had to say, 'No, not anymore,' then they had to say, 'I'm not being selfish, you bastards, you're the ones being Goddamn selfish!' He might very well have done so. But he didn't.

What the Hell. You were either alive or you weren't. You were in it, or you weren't. And if you weren't, yeah, there'd be someone shouting at you, from wherever, 'Shut up and mind your own business, you damn hypocrite!' Fair's fair, that was how life was; how people were.

Couldn't expect them to change over night (en masse), could you?

If you could look at it from another angle (one that wasn't so damn mean, so damn cold), you might even find a little humour in it all. Of course, you'd have to keep that to yourself, or else you'd end up the one everyone hated.

That was so not fun.

People, hey?

You had to love them (even when you didn't).

.

Oliver was nice. Polite, even. He didn't make nauseating comments every other breath, either. She found she could get used to hanging out with someone like that.

There wouldn't have to be any angry looks back, any sniping or glares or anything at all like that.

Such a relief.

Such a relief to be able to be herself – the better half of herself – around someone else. To be able to be treated like a real human being and act in accordance back.

It almost made her want to cry.

And yes, yes, just maybe she could allow herself to believe that Oliver was her real brother, her real twin. Just maybe.

.

"You're happy," Sydney said, the next time he saw her.

She said nothing back, but she did try to check herself, after that. She didn't want everyone knowing her business. It was her business, after all, not theirs.

"No comment?" Sydney added.

"None at all," she replied back, calmly.

"Comment on what?" Lyle asked, handing Sydney the psych journal he'd been flipping through.

Sydney ignored him (and the journal), and walked off with Miss Parker to get a coffee from the kitchenette.

"Wow," Broots commented, a few moments later, appearing by the coffee table. "Sydney's really getting good at this _You're not really here_ thing, huh?"

"Guess so," Lyle replied. "No leads?"

"Nada."

Lyle nodded to the psych journal. "Need something to read?"

Broots picked up the journal and flicked through it quickly. "Damn! If Sydney tells him about this, the Tool's gonna think he garnered himself another fan. I might be ill."

"Oh, he's not so bad."

Broots stared at him as though he was mad. "Are you feeling yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Clearly, you're not as fine as you say. Let's go find Jarod, eh? I'm thinking Florida. Any counter thoughts?"

Lyle smiled. "I doubt Jarod's in Florida."

"But you can't say for sure, right," Broots replied. "I'm in the Florida kinda mood, you know." He glanced in Miss Parker's direction. "Look at her. Doesn't she just have that _I'd rather be in Florida_ look about her?"

"I dunno."

"Come on, man, it's Florida!"

Lyle sighed. "Fine. Let's go to Florida, then, if it'll make you happy."

"You're damn right it will!" Broots replied excitedly.

"Who knows, maybe we'll even accidentally bump into our Pretender."

"Yeah?"

"Nothing's impossible. And Miss Parker does like to see him every once in a while, you know. To be sure he's not fallen into enemy hands."

"Ah. Enemy hands, is it?"

"Yeah." Lyle nodded. "They can be pretty persuasive, that lot from T-Corp."

"You know, if they had sent one of their moles here to infiltrate the company, and it was a lady, you know, I wouldn't be averse to… helping her out every once in a while."

Lyle laughed. "And you've shared this with Marlon, I imagine?"

"Hell no, baby! Hell no. No, no, no. Absolutely not."

"Of course not. What happens at work, stays at work, right?"

"Absolutely right. Man…"

"Look sharp," Lyle told him. "She's got those _Someone's not doing their job_ eyes and she's coming our way."

Broots sat down in front of his computer quickly and got typing. It was true, she did have nice eyes, but sometimes even he was hard pressed to think so when she had on one of her looks.

"I see we're working hard, as usual," she scathed, shooting a particularly nasty look in Lyle's direction. Why wasn't he doing anything?

"I'm observing," he said. "What do you want, lady?"

"I want you to do your job!" she spat. "I want you to find Jarod!"

"Mmm. It would seem. And what, exactly, will you be doing then, whilst Broots and I are looking for Jarod, you'll be doing what?"

"Uh-ah!" Sydney got in between them quickly, grabbing her wrist to prevent her from slapping Lyle. "Violence is unproductive, Miss Parker," he told her, "in the current circumstance."

She laughed, and wrenched her wrist out of Sydney's hold. "You're an asshole!" she hissed, and turned about and stalked off.

Sydney crossed his arms. "Thank you, Lyle, for that. You're a real charmer, you know," he said. With a quick word to Broots, "Keep at it!", he walked off after Miss Parker.

"I know," Lyle said, once he'd gone far enough that he wouldn't be able to hear him.

"I have to say, that was charming," Broots agreed with Sydney.

Lyle shook his head. "I'm an idiot. Ignore me. I'm not here."

Broots rolled his eyes. "Alright. You're not here." He looked around, a moment later, and saw that Lyle had walked off, too. To his office, apparently. "Damn. You're not." He sighed. Still, that didn't have to mean Florida was off, did it.

.

"Florida!" Miss Parker laughed. "Tell me you didn't just make that up now!" she snapped angrily at Broots.

"No, I did not," Broots defended himself. "That's where Jarod is, and if we don't get a move on, he won't be there for very long."

She resisted the strong urge to hit him across the back of the head and stalked off. What the Hell did she want to go to crummy bloody Florida for? Especially with that lot! Any enjoyment she might have had would be royally bloody ruined.

_Nice_, she silently scathed to herself. _Fucking nice._

She sat down in the chair behind her desk, back in her office, and thought about ringing Oliver and filling him in on her sudden vacation plans. She grabbed her phone. Why not? She'd just tell him it was some work thing. Maybe he'd have something to tell her that'd cheer her up, she wouldn't know until she'd rung.

She punched in the number he'd recited for her – seemingly confused that she hadn't written it down, as he'd anticipated – and pressed the call button. She remembered that she'd replied, to his look, "Watch out what you tell me, Oliver. I've a damn good memory", and smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

Lyrics to _Only Desire_ (c) copyright Joseph Washbourn and Julian Deane.

.

7.

Emily had gotten a gig singing other people's songs in a local club. She went by the name of Lara Giordano. The musicians backing her were good. Over his lunch break, Jarod stopped by to watch her sing. She was singing a song by a UK group called Toploader. The song was named _Only Desire_. She began the third verse: "...Boy, I don't want to fight. I know it's the middle of the night, so come now and sit by the fire. Maybe it's only desire..."

Jarod's heart swelled for her, to see her as happy as she was, in that moment, doing what she loved, what she truly enjoyed. Looking at her on that stage, listening to her sing, he'd have sworn she'd done this before, but he reminded himself that she was _his_ sister – Kyle and Mo's sister – reminded himself that her brothers had all been Pretenders. _Save Ethan_, he thought.

Emily was now singing _Happy_, Leona Lewis's 2009 hit from the album Echo.

Jarod's thought returned to their half brother, Ethan, an Inner Sense Possessor. If it was from their father, Charles, that they'd inherited Cooper's Anomaly – the revised naming hadn't stuck with him, it seemed – then... He fought back the urge to shake his head, 'no'. No, because applicable lore on Possessors stated that expression was inherited most strongly from the maternal side in cases of non-Convergence, and Charles and Catherine had not been Convergence partners. Which was why Ethan was an ISP and not a Pretender. Naturally.

He blinked several times. Kyle and he had both been born Pretenders, though, and Geronimo, as his clone, was also a Pretender. Emily was a non-Possessor. Which meant that Margaret hadn't been Charles's Convergence partner, either. According to T-Corp lore.

He put a hand to his head. Usually. The rules weren't hard and fast, they were generally – typically – right, but sometimes unexpected, unexplained things happened. Sometimes, spontaneous aberrations happened.

Like they'd once thought Reagan to be, before it had come out that Lyle was an Empath (Class Five) and not a Pretender. According to T-Corp, something like that (between twins) was either an aberration or the icing on the cake proving that Miss Parker and Lyle really weren't twins. Sprung!

Even if Catherine hadn't been a Pretender – even if Parker was – it didn't matter; twins should have shared expression of the anomaly, as Sydney and Jacob had. Parker's Pretender expression had obviously come from her father's side, just as her Inner Sense had come from her mother, which was why Ethan wasn't also a Pretender... because Catherine had had Convergence with Miss Parker's father?

_Here's another angle to this story_, he thought, struggling with his thoughts. _Perhaps Miss Parker being a Pretender is just another spontaneous aberration. And her father isn't a Pretender, or a Possessor, at all._

He shook his head, finally. T-Corp and the Centre didn't see eye to eye on the subject of the Anomaly, anyway, and it wasn't like he believed either of their stories about it. He was keeping an open mind.

After all, according to T-Corp Scripture, Lyle and Brigitte would have had to have had Convergence for Reagan to have inherited his father's Empathy to the same degree, to be a Class Five, which he had consistently tested as. And then, what of Lyle's other child, his daughter from Canada, also a Class Five? Brigitte certainly hadn't been her mom. And what of his secondary expression, what of his being a Reaper? Were the kids also Reapers? He was sure _that_ was something Miss Parker would have shared, had she caught word of it! Obviously T-Corp Scripture had a lot to learn, and the Centre, he thought, was just as clueless.

He sighed...

"What's on your mind?"

… and nearly leapt out of his skin. "Harmony," he breathed. "Nothing... Just. Em's good." He smiled, quickly.

"Is that all?"

"Yeah."

She flashed a smile. "No. It isn't."

He sighed again. Shouldn't have agreed with her; should have made some comment on the weather, instead. He mentally shook his head. Random, just as sus.

"Actually, no, it isn't," he agreed. "I was thinking about Hubertus, if he's got the anomaly."

"Why would he have?" Harmony asked, not seeing how he'd put one and one together to make two, on that one.

He tossed his head. "Well, I mean, Charles is her father..."

"Jarod, she's not a Possessor."

"I-"

"Yes, actually, that is what you're suggesting," she cut in, her tone taking on an uncomfortably accusatory edge. "When did your sister become a Recessive, Jarod? Or is it more than that? You think she's secretly a Dominant? You think she's hiding it from you, from the whole family? Is that it? What is she? A Pretender? An ISP? Empath? Reaper?"

"Harm..."

"She's your sister, Jarod. Have you no shame?"

"Don't. Don't talk to me like that," he told her, suddenly cold. "You're not better than me, Harmony, you're just a person, as am I. Don't you take that tone with me, I don't find it funny, or hilarious, or cute. And I won't stand for it!"

"_You_ won't _stand_ for it?" Harmony laughed incredulously.

He shook his head. He wasn't having this argument with her – this _discussion_ with her. Here, or anywhere. He wasn't doing it. He turned and walked off on her. If she followed him, he'd pretend she hadn't, pretend he didn't see her, didn't know her.

.

On his way back to the office, stuck at a crossing waiting for the Walk sign, he spied Miss Parker across the road, arms crossed, leant against some building, an unhappy expression on her face.

Refraining, at the last minute, from a long procession of cuss words, he spun about, making as though he'd forgotten something and was about to go back for it, and hoped she hadn't seen. He was halfway down the block in the opposite direction when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a sudden dread fell upon him. Turning about, his suspicions were confirmed as to the owner of the hand, when he came face to face with her.

"Thought you'd just pretend you hadn't seen me there, huh?" Miss Parker asked, grinning in that _I know you better than you know you_ way that he found really ground on his nerves, at that moment.

"Ah," he replied quickly, "it seems I honestly _didn't_ see you. Given that, had I done so, I'm sure I'd be _running_ right about now!"

"Nah!" she said. "You didn't want to make it obvious, did you?"

He made no comment, on that.

She gave a heavy sigh. "Florida, hey."

"Hey," he repeated, unenthusiastically.

"Travelling solo?" she asked, suddenly, as though out of interest.

"That's the ticket."

"Ticket... I need to get that jerk a one-way ticket to Hell, the sooner, the better."

"Met someone. His name's Oliver. Nice. He's nice. I think he might be... my real brother."

Jarod frowned. Oh, okay, that was it then: they were playing the _Friends for a jig_ game, were they? "Noah's dead," he told her, straight. "Exposure on that large a scale to that sort of massive input would have been enough to kill him almost instantaneously, let alone anything else you've heard."

She snorted, narrowing her eyes and rolling them to the top of her head in a clear show of sarcasm. "Anything else like mooshing up his itty, bitty, witty brains and making off with his upgrades anything else?" she cooed, the combination of subject matter and her tone of voice making him feel slightly ill.

"I mean," he replied darkly.

"Nope, nope, nope. Oliver's my brother, I know it."

"Sure."

"You can scoff, but you're really a bit of an idiot."

He choked, much more amused than anything else – than offended, certainly – and couldn't help but laugh. "Oh. I see," his tone of voice amused.

"He's my brother, you moron! You don't think I'd _know_!"

"We only know what we want to know," he replied. "Isn't that how it goes? Selective truth. What makes you think it doesn't go both ways? That there's such a thing as _selective untruths_? Selective lies. Simply put, we don't want to see them. And so we don't?"

"Fuck off!"

"Oh. Oh? Shall I just? Right now?"

"Yeah, fuck you, fucking _bastard_!" she spat, her face dark with anger and rage.

"I never said I believed Lyle was your brother, Mel. You know I'd be the last person to get on that band wagon. And not just for your sake. Not just because he's not even worth the air he breathes. Because Noah is dead, like it or not. He is dead!"

She laughed, laughed like she could have stood there all day and laughed, like he'd just taken away anything that might have given her a reason not to, any life she might have had, before he'd said those words.

He stepped closer to her, on that grubby concrete footpath in the middle of this city, this wide, big city, so full of people, and things, and life. "Mel, this isn't the end of the world," he told her. "You never knew your twin; you stand there, all cut up, grieving for something that was never really real in the first place. Not for _you_! Whether or not that was ever _fair_, is not the _issue_, _Mel_! This is the issue. This is the issue. Your life. Your choices. Your life. Time to move on, hey? Don't you think. Time to live." He shook his head. "No more missing pieces. Only the pieces that you have now, and the pieces you can have, later on down the track. The pieces waiting for you, hmmm? Go get them, Mel. Go on. They're just there, you can take them. If you want."

She stomped her foot, covering her face with her hands. "I don't want them," she murmured, voice full of hurt, full of anguish.

"Yes you do. Yes you do," he told her. "You want them more than anything. More than anything. You want to live. To live, and not just go day to day, caught up in the past, never really living, only counting down the days, only dying a little more each second, each minute, hour, day, year. You want to live."

"No!" She threw her hands down, clutching her fists by her sides. "I want it back!" she howled. "I want what's mine! What's owed to be! I deserve it! I want it back!"

He put a hand on her shoulder, and, finally, she didn't pull away. "And Mel, Mel, you're never going to get it back. Fleeting. Everything is only fleeting. This material world. Everything in this world. But not here." He pressed a finger to his chest, over his heart. "Here. It stays right here. Nobody can take that away. It's ours. For keeps. But we've got to _keep_ living! We can't live on memories of the past! They can do a lot for us, they can direct us on the right path, the path we feel is right for us, but they can't, they _can't_ substitute for the real thing. They can't substitute for living, Mel."

"Nothing is the same," she said quietly, a hair's breadth away from sobbing, from whining, maybe, even.

"It changes. It all changes. In different ways, in the same ways. It changes. It can't go back."

"Why couldn't I just have... Why couldn't we both just have what we wanted, what we had every _right_ to have!"

"Life," he replied. "Life. We're not alone. Life isn't perfect. For anyone. It's just life." We watched her breathing, for a moment, and stepped closer, closing the distance between them. She needed a hug. She needed to connect again. He put his arms around her, and hugged her. Not even tightly, just so.

"Life goes on, sweetheart. Your father was right. The truth may hurt, more often than we'd like, at times, but it's no less the truth for it. For our pain, and anger. Pain and anger changes nothing, nothing but us."

She sniffed. "Actions. Actions move us forward. For good or for bad. Or just for something to do."

"Actions, that's right." He nodded. She was right.

"What if I'm scared?" she whispered.

"Scared of living?" he asked.

"You know what else."

"You're alive, and then you're dead. Choose life, hey? Live a little. If we truly do live on after our bodies die and decay, if so, we'll not be the same people we are now. We'll exist in some other form, and life will be different, merely because of that. Perhaps we do live on, or perhaps not; but if we do, it's gonna be different. We might never meet those that we loved in this life again; we might have to make new friends, new family, love again."

He pulled back to look into her eyes. Sad staring eyes. "I know you can do it. I know you can. You want to live. You're strong. You'll find reason to move forward and go on. But you have to want to, Mel. You have to want to. Do you want to?"

Mutely, she nodded.

"Yes?"

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"Then do it. Just do it! Do it, Mel. I know you can. Just like you can breathe – Can you breathe?"

She nodded silently.

"– You can live."

"It's hard," she finally said, quietly, almost in a mouse's voice.

"But you're doing it! You're alive!" He grinned, taking hold of her arms. "You're alive, Mel!"

She sniffed. "Are you taking drugs?"

He laughed. And, in the end, she laughed, too. They were both laughing. Both alive.

Lyrics to _Only Desire_ (c) copyright Joseph Washbourn and Julian Deane.

.

Emily had gotten a gig singing other people's songs in a local club. She went by the name of Lara Giordano. The musicians backing her were good. Over his lunch break, Jarod stopped by to watch her sing. She was singing a song by a UK group called Toploader. The song was named _Only Desire_. She began the third verse: "...Boy, I don't want to fight. I know it's the middle of the night, so come now and sit by the fire. Maybe it's only desire..."

Jarod's heart swelled for her, to see her as happy as she was, in that moment, doing what she loved, what she truly enjoyed. Looking at her on that stage, listening to her sing, he'd have sworn she'd done this before, but he reminded himself that she was _his_ sister – Kyle and Mo's sister – reminded himself that her brothers had all been Pretenders. _Save Ethan_, he thought.

Emily was now singing _Happy_, Leona Lewis's 2009 hit from the album Echo.

Jarod's thought returned to their half brother, Ethan, an Inner Sense Possessor. If it was from their father, Charles, that they'd inherited Cooper's Anomaly – the revised naming hadn't stuck with him, it seemed – then... He fought back the urge to shake his head, 'no'. No, because applicable lore on Possessors stated that expression was inherited most strongly from the maternal side in cases of non-Convergence, and Charles and Catherine had not been Convergence partners. Which was why Ethan was an ISP and not a Pretender. Naturally.

He blinked several times. Kyle and he had both been born Pretenders, though, and Geronimo, as his clone, was also a Pretender. Emily was a non-Possessor. Which meant that Margaret hadn't been Charles's Convergence partner, either. According to T-Corp lore.

He put a hand to his head. Usually. The rules weren't hard and fast, they were generally – typically – right, but sometimes unexpected, unexplained things happened. Sometimes, spontaneous aberrations happened.

Like they'd once thought Reagan to be, before it had come out that Lyle was an Empath (Class Five) and not a Pretender. According to T-Corp, something like that (between twins) was either an aberration or the icing on the cake proving that Miss Parker and Lyle really weren't twins. Sprung!

Even if Catherine hadn't been a Pretender – even if Parker was – it didn't matter; twins should have shared expression of the anomaly, as Sydney and Jacob had. Parker's Pretender expression had obviously come from her father's side, just as her Inner Sense had come from her mother, which was why Ethan wasn't also a Pretender... because Catherine had had Convergence with Miss Parker's father?

_Here's another angle to this story_, he thought, struggling with his thoughts. _Perhaps Miss Parker being a Pretender is just another spontaneous aberration. And her father isn't a Pretender, or a Possessor, at all._

He shook his head, finally. T-Corp and the Centre didn't see eye to eye on the subject of the Anomaly, anyway, and it wasn't like he believed either of their stories about it. He was keeping an open mind.

After all, according to T-Corp Scripture, Lyle and Brigitte would have had to have had Convergence for Reagan to have inherited his father's Empathy to the same degree, to be a Class Five, which he had consistently tested as. And then, what of Lyle's other child, his daughter from Canada, also a Class Five? Brigitte certainly hadn't been her mom. And what of his secondary expression, what of his being a Reaper? Were the kids also Reapers? He was sure _that_ was something Miss Parker would have shared, had she caught word of it! Obviously T-Corp Scripture had a lot to learn, and the Centre, he thought, was just as clueless.

He sighed...

"What's on your mind?"

… and nearly leapt out of his skin. "Harmony," he breathed. "Nothing... Just. Em's good." He smiled, quickly.

"Is that all?"

"Yeah."

She flashed a smile. "No. It isn't."

He sighed again. Shouldn't have agreed with her; should have made some comment on the weather, instead. He mentally shook his head. Random, just as sus.

"Actually, no, it isn't," he agreed. "I was thinking about Hubertus, if he's got the anomaly."

"Why would he have?" Harmony asked, not seeing how he'd put one and one together to make two, on that one.

He tossed his head. "Well, I mean, Charles is her father..."

"Jarod, she's not a Possessor."

"I-"

"Yes, actually, that is what you're suggesting," she cut in, her tone taking on an uncomfortably accusatory edge. "When did your sister become a Recessive, Jarod? Or is it more than that? You think she's secretly a Dominant? You think she's hiding it from you, from the whole family? Is that it? What is she? A Pretender? An ISP? Empath? Reaper?"

"Harm..."

"She's your sister, Jarod. Have you no shame?"

"Don't. Don't talk to me like that," he told her, suddenly cold. "You're not better than me, Harmony, you're just a person, as am I. Don't you take that tone with me, I don't find it funny, or hilarious, or cute. And I won't stand for it!"

"_You_ won't _stand_ for it?" Harmony laughed incredulously.

He shook his head. He wasn't having this argument with her – this _discussion_ with her. Here, or anywhere. He wasn't doing it. He turned and walked off on her. If she followed him, he'd pretend she hadn't, pretend he didn't see her, didn't know her.

.

On his way back to the office, stuck at a crossing waiting for the Walk sign, he spied Miss Parker across the road, arms crossed, leant against some building, an unhappy expression on her face.

Refraining, at the last minute, from a long procession of cuss words, he spun about, making as though he'd forgotten something and was about to go back for it, and hoped she hadn't seen. He was halfway down the block in the opposite direction when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a sudden dread fell upon him. Turning about, his suspicions were confirmed as to the owner of the hand, when he came face to face with her.

"Thought you'd just pretend you hadn't seen me there, huh?" Miss Parker asked, grinning in that _I know you better than you know you_ way that he found really ground on his nerves, at that moment.

"Ah," he replied quickly, "it seems I honestly _didn't_ see you. Given that, had I done so, I'm sure I'd be _running_ right about now!"

"Nah!" she said. "You didn't want to make it obvious, did you?"

He made no comment, on that.

She gave a heavy sigh. "Florida, hey."

"Hey," he repeated, unenthusiastically.

"Travelling solo?" she asked, suddenly, as though out of interest.

"That's the ticket."

"Ticket... I need to get that jerk a one-way ticket to Hell, the sooner, the better."

"Met someone. His name's Oliver. Nice. He's nice. I think he might be... my real brother."

Jarod frowned. Oh, okay, that was it then: they were playing the _Friends for a jig_ game, were they? "Noah's dead," he told her, straight. "Exposure on that large a scale to that sort of massive input would have been enough to kill him almost instantaneously, let alone anything else you've heard."

She snorted, narrowing her eyes and rolling them to the top of her head in a clear show of sarcasm. "Anything else like mooshing up his itty, bitty, witty brains and making off with his upgrades anything else?" she cooed, the combination of subject matter and her tone of voice making him feel slightly ill.

"I mean," he replied darkly.

"Nope, nope, nope. Oliver's my brother, I know it."

"Sure."

"You can scoff, but you're really a bit of an idiot."

He choked, much more amused than anything else – than offended, certainly – and couldn't help but laugh. "Oh. I see," his tone of voice amused.

"He's my brother, you moron! You don't think I'd _know_!"

"We only know what we want to know," he replied. "Isn't that how it goes? Selective truth. What makes you think it doesn't go both ways? That there's such a thing as _selective untruths_? Selective lies. Simply put, we don't want to see them. And so we don't?"

"Fuck off!"

"Oh. Oh? Shall I just? Right now?"

"Yeah, fuck you, fucking _bastard_!" she spat, her face dark with anger and rage.

"I never said I believed Lyle was your brother, Mel. You know I'd be the last person to get on that band wagon. And not just for your sake. Not just because he's not even worth the air he breathes. Because Noah is dead, like it or not. He is dead!"

She laughed, laughed like she could have stood there all day and laughed, like he'd just taken away anything that might have given her a reason not to, any life she might have had, before he'd said those words.

He stepped closer to her, on that grubby concrete footpath in the middle of this city, this wide, big city, so full of people, and things, and life. "Mel, this isn't the end of the world," he told her. "You never knew your twin; you stand there, all cut up, grieving for something that was never really real in the first place. Not for _you_! Whether or not that was ever _fair_, is not the _issue_, _Mel_! This is the issue. This is the issue. Your life. Your choices. Your life. Time to move on, hey? Don't you think. Time to live." He shook his head. "No more missing pieces. Only the pieces that you have now, and the pieces you can have, later on down the track. The pieces waiting for you, hmmm? Go get them, Mel. Go on. They're just there, you can take them. If you want."

She stomped her foot, covering her face with her hands. "I don't want them," she murmured, voice full of hurt, full of anguish.

"Yes you do. Yes you do," he told her. "You want them more than anything. More than anything. You want to live. To live, and not just go day to day, caught up in the past, never really living, only counting down the days, only dying a little more each second, each minute, hour, day, year. You want to live."

"No!" She threw her hands down, clutching her fists by her sides. "I want it back!" she howled. "I want what's mine! What's owed to be! I deserve it! I want it back!"

He put a hand on her shoulder, and, finally, she didn't pull away. "And Mel, Mel, you're never going to get it back. Fleeting. Everything is only fleeting. This material world. Everything in this world. But not here." He pressed a finger to his chest, over his heart. "Here. It stays right here. Nobody can take that away. It's ours. For keeps. But we've got to _keep_ living! We can't live on memories of the past! They can do a lot for us, they can direct us on the right path, the path we feel is right for us, but they can't, they _can't_ substitute for the real thing. They can't substitute for living, Mel."

"Nothing is the same," she said quietly, a hair's breadth away from sobbing, from whining, maybe, even.

"It changes. It all changes. In different ways, in the same ways. It changes. It can't go back."

"Why couldn't I just have... Why couldn't we both just have what we wanted, what we had every _right_ to have!"

"Life," he replied. "Life. We're not alone. Life isn't perfect. For anyone. It's just life." We watched her breathing, for a moment, and stepped closer, closing the distance between them. She needed a hug. She needed to connect again. He put his arms around her, and hugged her. Not even tightly, just so.

"Life goes on, sweetheart. Your father was right. The truth may hurt, more often than we'd like, at times, but it's no less the truth for it. For our pain, and anger. Pain and anger changes nothing, nothing but us."

She sniffed. "Actions. Actions move us forward. For good or for bad. Or just for something to do."

"Actions, that's right." He nodded. She was right.

"What if I'm scared?" she whispered.

"Scared of living?" he asked.

"You know what else."

"You're alive, and then you're dead. Choose life, hey? Live a little. If we truly do live on after our bodies die and decay, if so, we'll not be the same people we are now. We'll exist in some other form, and life will be different, merely because of that. Perhaps we do live on, or perhaps not; but if we do, it's gonna be different. We might never meet those that we loved in this life again; we might have to make new friends, new family, love again."

He pulled back to look into her eyes. Sad staring eyes. "I know you can do it. I know you can. You want to live. You're strong. You'll find reason to move forward and go on. But you have to want to, Mel. You have to want to. Do you want to?"

Mutely, she nodded.

"Yes?"

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"Then do it. Just do it! Do it, Mel. I know you can. Just like you can breathe – Can you breathe?"

She nodded silently.

"– You can live."

"It's hard," she finally said, quietly, almost in a mouse's voice.

"But you're doing it! You're alive!" He grinned, taking hold of her arms. "You're alive, Mel!"

She sniffed. "Are you taking drugs?"

He laughed. And, in the end, she laughed, too. They were both laughing. Both alive.


End file.
